A Debacle to Share
by DreamsofaDreamer
Summary: Bella Swan didn't just make friends like this. There was something about Edward Cullen that she couldn't quite put her finger on that made it almost impossible for her to stay away. She didn't know it yet, but when she figures it out, she'll be in for the debacle of a lifetime. A/U OOC Rated M for lemons!
1. Chapter 1: You've Got a Friend in Me

**A/N: Hello! Welcome to another story I have written whilst procrastinating. I'm going to go ahead and tell you that you're in for some crazy plot twists. Plot twists are my favorite. This one's an A/U but you're going to have to figure this one out for yourself. **

**(PSST PIECE THE PIECES TOGETHER!)**

**I won't make this A/N long. Just wanted to say hi and give you the song of the chapter:**

You've Got a Friend in Me - Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett

**Reviews get a glimpse into a regular day in Edward Cullen's life!**

**Disclaimer: SM owns everything, everything I tell ya! **

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**Chapter One: You've Got a Friend in Me**

I chose to take night school the summer before university so my mother and her new boyfriend could spend their evenings together. It wasn't even a class I needed. _The Writer's Craft _was a course I was fairly well versed in and honestly took it just so I can hand in work that I already wrote. The requirements for such _bird_ courses were simple: write a story, write a poem, write a speech, write a letter to yourself in fifteen years and one to your child self before a catastrophic event that changed your life forever.

_Dear five year old me, when your parents divorced, just know that those two people could not be any more different. The only thing they have in common is you, and for them that's enough. You couldn't help but feel that if you cleaned up your toys they would still be together. _

_Don't worry about it squirt. You'll get to spend the next thirteen years of your life switching back and forth every summer. You'll try to attend Forks High in freshman year and hate the weather so much you move back to Phoenix less than a month in. You'll break your father's heart, but that's okay. He understands. _

_Kid, I know it's hard to cope with now. Daddy's staying here and we're going to live in Arizona, I don't like the rain here. It makes me sad. _

_Kid I know your mom will take good care of you. Be careful where you go. Don't talk to strangers. I'll miss you squirt._

_Dear five year old me, I'm pretty sure you're upset right now. Pick your bum off the closet floor and take a deep breath. Bring all of the stuffed animals you sat with in there and lay them on the bed. Pull the covers up over your head so the bad guys can't touch you._

_Stay in your invisible bubble and wander through the next eighteen years of your life in that bubble. High school will be a drag. You're already too mature for their petty problems. They're probably sucking their thumbs and you're going to have to wake your mom up tomorrow so she won't make you late for kindergarten._

_High school will be the place where nothing and no one will hold your interest as much as the pen under your pillow does. Young one, take that pen and use it wisely. Take to the paper and document all you can. _

_You're going to feel like bigger and better things are to be experienced, kid. And that's true. Most people will spend their entire lives not realizing this. Remember this and you'll be okay. There's a world out there that's bigger than all of this, kid. You got it in the palms of your hand. You'll be okay._

I felt melancholy sneak up on me like an armed assassin. I stuck my pen between the pages of my journal and wished for the class to end. It was 9:01 and the first half just ended. Two more hours and I'll take the transit home to where pizza and pop will be waiting for me on the table beside Phil's keys and smelly duffel bag dropped haphazardly into a barstool.

The wire-haired, boho chic woman at the front was fiddling with the speakers she used to play us songs to keep us inspired. Today's Celtic Woman gave me a migraine. Maybe it was because I was tired. Maybe it was because I didn't have my coffee. I looked around at the ten other people in class with desk partners. I didn't have one, thank goodness.

I couldn't stand people my own age. Hell, I couldn't stand people at any age. People always want something from you. It didn't matter if they were nice. Even nice people used others so they could feel like they did something for the good of the world. People were fickle. Fake. They said one thing, think another and act completely out of bounds. People weren't trustworthy, dependable. People didn't see things the way I did.

I was removed from the context. Taken out of the picture. A mere observer and neutral territory in every decision. I was content in my bubble and didn't feel like sharing my thoughts to anyone because people never listened. Mrs. Hayes's song ended and I hoped with a bitter mind that she'd shut the damn thing off. She didn't.

I shook my hair out of its messy ponytail and would deal with the sweat that stuck it to my face later. Discretely, I put in my earphones and let the sounds of Radiohead's _Pablo Honey _album to take my focus away. In the back corner where I was placed, the window and I were in perfect accordance. I could see the moon from where I sat and a couple stars. The city lights ate the starlight and is one of the few reasons why I missed Forks. On the rare occasion that the night sky was clear there, the universe exploded over me, dusting the velvety black wool in a generous smattering of glitter.

In Phoenix, it was very easy to become muted by the rush of the city. Here, people paid me no mind when I walked on a busy street. Gangsters and their girlfriends took to their own devices, pretty boys and girls remained magnetized to each other, jocks and cheerleaders stuck to their iconic circles, the brains and fandoms closed themselves in their worlds, the movie buffs and their hipster friends went to café's at lunch and I stayed behind the scenes watching the world move forward and my own life melt me to the spot.

I was the star that, when you focused on it for too long, disappeared from your sight. You rubbed your eyes and saw me again, but in that same second, I've vanished. I'm a fleeting glance that no one seems to spare. I'm the girl with clipped wings and the world barely at my reach. I clutch at empty air and wait for the current to get me moving again.

A few more songs passed and I'm wondering with huge annoyance why we had five hours to write one assignment. I contemplated faking cramps or maybe a sprained ankle to remove myself from this stupid class. With five more weeks left until the exam and a summer that I can't wait to end, it's a wonder why I didn't bolt out of my seat in impatience.

After some time, someone came into the class. Mrs. Hayes' electrocuted hair and wide framed glasses turned to the man. I looked back to the sky without the slightest interest. Maybe he was here to free me from this agony. I chuckled darkly and thought of the various different scenarios that could stem out of this.

_One: _I wrote. _The building next to us is on fire and currently houses firecrackers. Two: There's an acid leak in the science classroom above us and it would be prudent if we left the premises now. Three: Her Volkswagen Beetle is being towed because the sunflowers she stuck on it are stolen property._

I was out of ideas by that point.

I was never good at planning escapes.

The classroom guest slung his jacket over his shoulder and walked back out of the room. It was a clothing item I questioned with incredulity and I wondered if he had _been _outside yet. He must be new.

Mrs. Hayes began talking and I tucked the earphones into my shirt. She demanded that we bring our chairs to the front of the room like we did on the first day. I blanched at the thought of having to go through that again. _Hi my name is Bella Swan and I'm plain. _Everyone appraised me and determined for themselves that I was, indeed, plain. I then proceeded to write a poem about my plainness.

_Brown hair, eyes:_

_The colour of dirt and mud._

_Pale skin and an inability to tan:_

_The mark of an almost-albino._

_I don't belong to any clubs:_

_Unless you count the frequent flyers club as one._

_I suck at writing poetry:_

_I'm plain._

_You should call me Jane._

Of course I put zero effort into that one. I titled it I'm plain Bella Swan. Very creative.

Mrs. Hayes re-invited our guest in and I was staring at my feet. Disinterested in this game she was making us play. I was going to go first and introduce myself. She called my name. And I think my face dropped despite expecting it.

"I'm Bella Swan and I'm _still _plain." I looked up at the guest. His legs straddled the 'welcome chair'. He was wearing his leather jacket and a smile that knocked the stupid expression off my face and replaced it with a slap of red tomato cheeks. He was a pretty boy. Painstakingly handsome of course, I had to look away. Perfect pearly-whites. The way that his hair was in disarray made it look like it was moulded to look like it was not-on-purpose. His face was chiseled out of the same white stone that I was, except he made it work against his pouty-pink lips. He was dreadfully gorgeous and it took another second for me to accept this.

I did.

As the ten other people introduced themselves, I couldn't help but notice a slight tremor that rocked my body. Adrenaline, I think. My skin pricked with unease from my nervousness and my palms were sweating. My overactive flight response made my stomach churn, a delayed response from having spoken up.

I rolled my eyes at the introductions of some of the girls who were obviously flaunting _something _to catch Pretty Boy's attention. Chances are he's an asshole. Pretty Boys don't do night school because it interrupted beauty sleep. Pretty boy probably needed a credit. Pretty boy probably needed help getting caught up and I would probably help him because Pretty boy always gets what he wants.

I caught myself. I wasn't usually so judgemental. I think my migraine had something to do with it. I was anti-everything today. Mrs. Hayes told Pretty Boy to pick one thing about himself that could also work as a metaphor for him to write about later. _Plain could metaphorically mean my inability to distinguish myself from the background, _I wrote into my notebook. _A wallflower, a blade of grass in a city lush green and lively. Busy, unnoticed, cold pizza and pop on the counter. A plain ticket, to the same old town every month. A Monday –_

Mrs. Hayes hovered over me and I heard her loud bangles before I saw her shadow. I shut my book and prepared to _read in front of the class_ because I so rudely ignored the new kid's introduction_. _I closed my eyes in irritation and focused on the silence that preluded his speech. _Deep breaths. _

"I'm Edward Cullen, and I'm a vegetarian," he said simply. A quiet murmur of the class discussing what a vegetarian was a metaphor for ensued.

A shift of seats told me that _I _was now in the middle of the interrogation circle.

Hayes cleared her throat and when I opened my eyes, Edward was staring curiously at me. I flinched away from his gaze – as from everyone else's – and swallowed dryly. "Plain," I began. My almost-raspy voice was a sharp contrast to Edward's almost-seductive honey. Me. Bella. Plain. I finished with a nod and slammed my journal shut for effect. I _hated _reading what I wrote almost I as much as I hated this class. It was the only one that ran late enough for Phil and my mom to finish doing what they were doing.

We returned to our seats and Edward was trailing behind me, undoubtedly told that we were seat-mates. I looked at the window only to find that the moon was lost behind a cloud. I was hyper aware of Edward craning his neck to get a glimpse of what I was looking at. _Nosy._

"What's outside the window?" He asked at my ear. _Shiver._

I turned towards him, not yet used to his strange face and shrugged. "Just the moon. It's full tonight."

"You're not going to turn into a werewolf, are you?"

I made a frown looking at his leathery sleeve, irritated at his stupid attire. "Nope. What's with the jacket? It's a sauna out there."

"It's a statement piece," he said with a laugh. "I hear leather is very _in _right now."

Raising my eyebrows, I laughed. "Yeah, and so is heat stroke."

He laughed too. Of course it was a beautiful sound, full of low throaty sounds and finishing with a scoff. "You're funny."

"And I think you talk too much."

"I hardly think that's a bad thing."

I smiled tightly. Mostly because I didn't know what to say to that and partly because I couldn't tell if Pretty Boy was teasing me. I had lived long enough to know that people like _him _don't talk to people like _me. _Perhaps he was only talking to me out of lack of choice. Perhaps he was a decent guy. Whatever the case may be, he was so good looking that the words _good looking _didn't even do him justice. Had I known him any better, I might have said that he was beautiful.

I angled my body away from him as I wrote. The topic was the same as earlier. I'll admit, I wasn't putting much effort in anything I did. The sole reason I was here was so I would be occupied from seven to eleven at night without compromising my safety. I could list a dozen accidents off of the top of my head, but nothing compared to watching the people I loved most in the world decide they didn't love each other anymore.

_Love is fickle. It is all consuming and then spits you out._ I continued spewing all the vomit I could from my brain. It wasn't much. Barely a page written in the past hour, but it was enough to keep my hands and mind busy. I couldn't find any more words after that. I leaned back and ran my hands through my thick brown mane of hair to comb it into a ponytail.

I chewed on my fingernails.

Straightened out the wrinkles in my blouse.

Tied and retied the laces on my shoes.

I was vaguely aware of Edward scrawling away beside me through all of that. He was taking the pen to the paper vigorously from what I could hear. I chanced a glance at him and looking at the blue button down polo he wore and the dress shoes that enclosed his feet, I decided that the name was really fitting after all. It was so fitting that it was almost comedic. He dressed like an old man.

Except for the jacket of course.

I watched his movements from the corner of my eye. His hand stilled. His face was looming so close to the page that his pointed nose could have smudged the still wet ink. He straightened up with a sigh revealing to me his elegant and ridiculously uniform handwriting. It took a second to catch myself before my eyes bugged out of my head.

He bent down and rifled through his bag, pulling out a canteen of sorts. Taking a swig from it, he chose that very second to turn to me. Our eyes locked and I looked away, blushing for being caught. The corners of his eyes crinkled, as if he found it amusing. I certainly did not.

His body convulsed and I realized when I turned to look at him that he was choking on his drink. He coughed silently at first, and then loud enough for the teacher to hear. He signaled a hand saying that he was fine and smiled sheepishly at me when the obstruction was clear.

"Went down the wrong tube."

His eyes were doing the _look-down-then-up-with-a-raised-eye-brow _look that made it difficult to speak in fear of sounding like a giggly idiot. He was all kinds of seductive, all kinds of attractive. Hell, from where I sat, it was hard to ignore the electricity in the air. Of course, it was just him. Attractive people had a gravitational field around them, devastating those within a 10 meter radius. Caught in his web, I probably looked doe-eyed. He probably knew his effect on people.

It wasn't fair. People like him got things just because their face looked like it was sculpted out of the finest marble. People like him got out of speeding tickets with one dazzling smile. People like me had to deal with how things normally went, and things normally didn't go this way. Why was he _dazzling _me?

I chewed on my cheek, deliberating whether or not I should entertain him with conversation. _What the hell, _I figured. _Why not? _

With my elbow resting on the desk and my head resting on my hand I assumed conversation position. "What school did you go to?"

He was picking a piece of fluff from his sleeve then he spoke. "I was homeschooled."

"So why take night school in the summer?"

He shrugged. "I think I'd get more out of being in a class with other people. Lots of new perspectives."

"Well, trust me. You're not missing out on much here. Besides writing on our own, we don't do much let alone share our thoughts."

He chuckled silently and shook his head. "I happen to think that it's quite the opposite. See, look at that girl over there," he said pointing to a perky-looking blonde at the front of the room. "She seems to be concentrated on her work, right?"

I nodded.

"Right. So, you can only imagine what catastrophic event she might be reliving as we speak. Maybe her mother died, a friend. A sibling. Maybe her dog ran away. There's so much you can't gather from people from what they tell you. We all seem to forget that everyone has problems of their own."

I looked at him, taken aback by his observation, and then at the other students in the room. The boy who sniggered at me for being plain was rubbing tears from his eyes. The guy across from us was rubbing small circles on the back of the girl beside him. She was crying as she was explaining something to him. Another girl was staring at her page rereading what she wrote, and then closed the book looking like she was satisfied.

When I turned back to Edward, his expression was painful to look at. His skin was so pale, his lips so red his hair so oddly maintained and wholly perfect that even the haunted look in his eyes seemed to accentuate this. My stomach flitted a little, but I felt really guilty for being so self-centered and judgemental.

"Writing can be therapy for some people. It certainly has helped me along the way and so this class seemed like a good option to get to mingle with the outside world," he said with a laugh at that last part. "There are so many stories that you can pick up on if you just watch and listen." He watched my expression as my mind berated itself.

"Don't even worry about it. I can't help but notice these things."

He turned to his journal and I took that as a signal to dwell on my feelings. _New, normal, never what they seem. Surprises._

I couldn't form any words. I let my pen drop. I wasn't in the mood to write any more and honestly wanted to redeem myself to Edward. I must seem like a self-centered bitch.

"Is home schooling that bad?" He shut his book and tucked the pen into the spine.

"Yes because it gets terribly lonely with nobody there and no because I get to learn the things that I want whenever I want. It's kind of a win-win if you ask me," he said, toying with a smile. "I get to do things my way and in turn I don't get to inconvenience people."

I scrunched my nose. "What about university, then?"

"Take the classes I want and show up whenever I want," he smirked.

"Oh," I said dumbly. "You don't have any siblings? Don't they complain when you hog the curriculum?"

"No, so no," he shook his head.

"You're a lonely child like me then."

"Yes, it does get pretty lonely," he shook his head again, this time with a laugh. I watched in fascination as he brushed a lock of his strange brown hair back. "Kind of sucks, if you ask me. I feel so antisocial."

"I know _exactly _how you feel. I'm so used to being alone all the time that it's uncomfortable being with people."

"Do I make you uncomfortable?" He asked, his face suddenly still, eyes so penetrating that it seemed he was searching for something more than just my words. He was absolutely dazzling. I wondered how many times he abused that _smoldering _look.

My face heated. "Yes, when you do that."

"Do what?"

"The thing, with your eyes."

He looked away, mumbling a sorry. He seemed to decide something. He barely looked up at me even when I stared at him for so long that I was sure he'd feel it.

I couldn't find it in me to strike up a conversation after that. I was dumbfounded by the simplicity in his words and the thoughtfulness that embraced them. Not only did the insanity of his handsomeness get to me by that point, but I found it mind-blowingly attractive that someone could be gifted with altruism and looks that could knock the breath out of me. Edward Cullen didn't say anything to me for the rest of class. He stuck his nose in his book and was writing so quickly that I didn't want to interrupt him.

I wanted to apologize for what I had said.

When Mrs. Hayes called us to attention, it was ten-to-eleven. Edward thanked her for the free trial and he shrugged when she asked him if he would return to class.

I felt like I'd been punched. Like when you know you've done something awful towards someone who didn't deserve it. Like when guilt comes rising out of your throat and kicks you square in the chest for being so inconsiderate. He was branching out, trying to meet people and I made him feel unwelcome.

It was inexcusable. I'll admit that he took it a bit too seriously, but I sensed that he was delicate. I knew that and I dropped his self-confidence down to the point where he didn't want to come back to class.

He turned to look at me, and forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes in the least bit. He followed the crowd into the hall and was yapped up by the other people in the class. I hurried behind them, hoping to catch him when he went into the lot. The girls got into frenzy mode, and had I not hurt him, I would have laughed at how they surrounded him with their bodies and questions. But I did hurt him and I couldn't watch as his ear was talked off.

I pushed away from the bike racks and pulled Edward by the elbow until he relented and let me lead him away. The girls _Hey-ed_ me and I could only imagine their scowls.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I said whilst waving them away.

He gently nudged me, and I realized with blush that I hadn't let go yet.

"Look Edward–"

"Thanks," we said at the same time. I awkwardly ducked my head when he motioned for me to go first.

"I'm sorry for being rude. I'm really, really sorry Edward. We can be friends. I just need you to tell me when I'm being an ass."

"Apology accepted," he said without hesitation. "I make lots of people uncomfortable." He did that dismissive shrug again and turned to go. My feet followed him on their own accord. He leaned his hand against the driver's side of a dirt-specked Volvo when he heard me coming.

"About your eyes… I only meant that you make me feel like you're looking for something in me that I don't have. I'm not like those other girls, as you can probably tell. I won't melt under your stare." My chin jutted out towards them as I spoke, an involuntary stance I took up when girls like _them _teased me at school. It was easier to hold my ground when he wasn't staring into my soul.

He made a motion to turn, but I assumed he thought otherwise. Speaking very quietly he said, "You're right. You're not like other girls. But I'm not like anyone you've ever met, Bella. I meant what I said about being lonely. Sorry for being out of practice dealing with people."

I palmed my face. I had created an even bigger mess than I thought. Before he got into his car, I found my words.

"Edward, wait. Please."

"Bella, I'm sure you have somewhere more important to be."

I groaned. "I'm not usually so rude. I was…I uhh…I," Ugh. "Okay, I'll settle for honesty. Because honesty is the best policy right?" I laughed nervously.

He shut the door and faced me, amusement written as clear as day on his face.

"Oh you're _so _enjoying this," I grumbled.

"If it's my forgiveness you're after, you'd better start being honest." A smile crept on his face and I wondered if he knew what I was going to say. Of course he knew he was attractive. Nobody could be that dense. Not even _I _would be that dense.

"So I have this theory," I began. "A theory that distinguishes groups of people." My eyes wandered to his mud-caked tires so I had to look up to gauge his expression.

"Would you like to get something to drink?" He asked before I could continue. "There's a Starbucks right down the road. Then I can decide if I forgive you or not."

"Yes. Coffee. Please. I'm _so _much nicer with coffee in me."

"You're not one of those caffeine addicts are you?"

"Goodness, I have to be. Without it, I think I'd die."

"Why? That stuff tastes disgusting!"

We J-walked to the other side of the road and by the time we were in line, we'd got into full argument mode and earned some side-eyed glances from wary patrons.

"Bella, coffee's bad. Your teeth will become stained with it. Don't you want white teeth?"

"Who gives a damn about white teeth when you've got a migraine blowing your brain to bits?!"

"You wouldn't have a _migraine _if you didn't drink coffee."

"What can I get you two?" The barista asked timidly, fully aware of the tension between us.

"_I'll _have a grande coffee. Black, three sugars. Please and _thank-you._"

"I'll have what she's having. I'd like to be _enlightened _on why coffee's so fantastic."

"O-okay," the young girl nodded and blushed crazily hard when she took in Edward's perfect face. I feel ya, girl. "Who do I make this out to?"

"Bella and Edward, thanks."

Before I could slam down a ten, Edward had a shiny black card already in the hands of the girl.

"Edward, I insist. It's the least I can do."

"No. You hurt my feelings and so you don't get the satisfaction of paying."

"You're impossible."

"Yep, truly I am," he winked.

I was floored. I couldn't expect what to come out of his mouth. I moved over to the waiting area with him and told him to flirt with someone until they gave up their table. Oddly enough, he actually went up to a girl about our age sitting at a pair of couches. Her face when he sat across from her was priceless.

She gaped like a goldfish the entire time he was talking and when he turned to point me out, she nodded and replied with a few words of her own. The coffee didn't come yet, and so I watched as he helped her pack up her things and waved farewell. The girl was shouldering a massive backpack and I motioned for her to come over.

"You really didn't have to do that. I'm so sorry. Please, feel free to kick him out."

"No its fine," she smiled. "I was about to head home anyway."

Our conversation was cut short by the coffees being shoved in my direction. I waved an awkward goodbye and dodged tables to get to where Edward was.

"What did you say to her?"

"Nothing, I just noticed that she was getting ready to leave."

"She wasn't though."

"Yes, yes she was," he insisted.

"Whatever. I have coffee and so everything is all good." I inhaled a sip, instantly regretting the burn down my throat. I played it cool though. I was thankful for the air-conditioning and let the cool air waft over my tongue.

So not cool. Edward was looking at me with a foreign expression on his face.

"Wah?" I asked.

"You shouldn't drink so fast."

"I like to live dangerously, Edward."

He bit back a laugh, but it came out as a cough anyway. "Drink up Edwardo, the coffee won't bite."

He bobbed his head to the side and mumbled something like_ sure it won't. _I watched him in anticipation of his first sip. He kept his eyes glued to me the entire time and took a mouthful of the stuff. He cringed while swallowing and his eyebrows puckered so tightly together that I was sure the marble he was carved out of would crack.

I snorted. "Light weight."

"Shut up. Ugh, that is absolutely _horrid!_"

"It's good!"

"It's an abomination to the beverage industry."

I laughed so hard at that one that my stomach began to hurt. "Oh you're so sheltered. Please, tell me you have been to a rated R movie!" I wheezed in between laughs.

"Bella, I'm not that much of an outcast."

Suddenly, the seriousness was back. He set down his cup while I clutched mine for dear life. The joy in his eyes receded and was replaced by the same defeated look from earlier. I sighed, peeling off the heat sleeve, avoiding his eye.

"I've done it again. Insulted you."

He nodded but smiled encouragingly.

"As I was saying," I began again. "I have this theory that basically outlines how people form groups. Naturally, everyone flocks to the same sort of niche. The jocks with the cheerleaders. The movie buffs with other movie buffs. Academics with academics. Fandoms with fandoms. And then there are people like you. The pretty boys tend to stick with the pretty girls. People like me? We stay on the outside. Wallflowers," I added for effect.

"Ugh, I can't believe I'm saying this."

"Go on. Bella, please."

"The reason why I acted the way I did earlier was because I couldn't understand why you were talking to me. You _know _you're…handsome. People like you tend not to associate with people like me. I know it sounds superficial. But that's how it went for me in high school." Shrugging, I took a sip of the coffee I had grown so used to drinking. It tasted awful, but I'd never admit it. "Labels stuck and no one really could say they were open to accept who other people were."

"This is the real world, Bella. Things like that…people like that, rather, don't get very far in life. Trust me, labels and boundaries will break once you're out of this city in the fall."

I mulled over what he said.

"Are you? Open to _who_ other people are, I mean?" The way he put the emphasis on the _who _made me my eyes find his again.

"It really doesn't matter who people are. If you're nice, nice to others, then that's okay with me. It took something strong to get my head out of my ass though. I really shouldn't have been so quick to judge you."

He smiled proudly. "Glad to have been the one to do that. I don't blame you, however."

"Could you _be _any more nice about it? Jeez, you should win a humanitarian award. Honestly you're the nicest person I've ever met."

He chuckled darkly without meeting my eyes. "I hardly think so."

I raised my eyebrows, listing on both hands the things I picked up on in the four and a half hours that I've known him.

After another slight argument in the school parking lot about whether he was going to drive me home or not, I acquiesced. Mostly because he seemed like he didn't want the night to end, which was good because I didn't want it to either. Edward's Volvo was spotless. Either he didn't give a damn about the car – wasn't likely – or he drove for hours looking for some place with mud because Phoenix sure as hell didn't rain enough to make any. He let me pick the radio station, but after finding techno song after techno song I settled for silence.

We didn't say much besides me giving him the odd direction. It was a silence I didn't feel the need to fill, unlike with most people. We pulled up at my mother's house a quarter after midnight. It was a small, orange-painted bungalow with cacti and lawn ornaments decorating the front yard.

"It's cute, a little cluttered for my taste though," he said, breaking the silence.

"It's my mother's mind manifested into physical objects. Things, things everywhere," I chuckled.

"Well," he said tapping the wheel. "I wouldn't want to keep her waiting. You seem like the type to keep a regular schedule."

"Wow, who's being insulting now?"

"No one, I'm merely stating the obvious," he grinned.

"Yeah, you're right," I smiled back.

"Wait here," he told me before getting out and walking around to my side. He opened the door for me and bowed.

"Oh you're ridiculous Edward. I have neighbours y'know."

"They're all asleep, don't worry."

"I'm not getting out of the car until you stop doing that."

"Stop doing what?"

"Bowing!"

"As you wish, Madame." He stood up, his eyes alight with the same playfulness he'd adopted all night.

I got out and straightened my blouse. "God, I could swear you're on drugs, but somehow I think that it's not your cup of coffee."

"That coffee was disgusting Bella and you know it," he said with a crinkle of his nose.

"It was probably an old batch."

"Yeah, yeah."

I shook my head at him. How bizarre was it that I had only known him for barely a day? It felt like eons. "Well, it was nice meeting you Edward."

"Likewise," he said with a nod.

"Thanks for the ride, and for the coffee."

"And for the conversation?"

"And for the conversation."

I turned to go, sensing the finality in the air, but when I took a couple of steps he called out to me.

"Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you feel lonely?"

I looked at him. A hard, long stare that made me kind of jittery from seeing him smile under the yellow street light. "No," I told him. "Not anymore."

"Me neither," he said, answering the question before I asked.

It was like neither of us could form any words when we were looking at each other because when he hopped back into the driver's seat and when I was at the gate, I dropped my bag and raced to the window before he could drive off.

"Edward? Are you coming back to class?"

He looked up at me and the corners of his lips tugged the rest of it open. "Only if we're friends."

I smiled and nodded that _yes indeed we were_. He saluted a goodbye and I waved to him before he turned the corner.

That night, I ate my pizza and drank my pop with my feet propped up on the coffee table. Around one, Phil came creeping down the stairs with my mother, both of them bed-headed and rosy-cheeked. This became awkward really fast and so I waved hello with my mouth full so I didn't have to say anything. I hugged the both of them goodnight and brought the pop upstairs with me.

Caffeine highs were so invigorating when you were at its peak but when you crashed…you crashed hard. Luckily my bed was there. Luckily I was so exhausted that I didn't have time to think about anything and anyone including a certain bronze-haired boy I had oddly (and quickly) grown to be quite fond of.

I guess I kind of wondered what being a vegetarian was a metaphor for.

* * *

Review for that sneak-a-peak! :)


	2. Chapter 2: The Tough Take a Coffee Break

**A/N: Are disclaimers really necessary at this point? Ugh, okay. Everything belongs to the great and wonderful Meyer. I just like fiddling with her characters and story line. I also like filling in the gaps.**

**Here's an EPOV of a regular day in his life. Not much going on. Not much at all! **

* * *

I stirred this morning with the intent of making the day productive. I heated breakfast in the microwave like a father preparing milk for his child in the darkness of a suburban kitchen. I was pensive, twirling the spoon so that the heat was distributed evenly. The warmth felt good on my skin. Alien, but good.

It had been a while since I had been with someone else.

I tested it on my tongue, bringing the spoon up to my lips. Not too hot, just right. Sipping loudly, I padded into the living room and sat on the leather bound couch, switched the TV on and concentrated on the morning news. It was good to listen to someone talk without having a clue who they _really _were. A fire in the East end. A murder in the South division. A baby born in a car last night, named after the cab driver who helped deliver him.

There were a number of things on my to-do list today but after sitting in the living room with the curtains drawn until it was the afternoon, I figured I'd get around to doing them later. I poured myself another cup. Heated it, stirred it, drank it in front of the computer.

There was a plethora of information online and learning it all was all I could do to pass the time. Genetic engineering had fascinated me from its modest beginnings. I saw potential. I always did. I took to work on my own DNA marvelling each time at how these strands were the script of my existence.

I brought myself another cup and stirred it until the heat was uniform.

I donned my lab coat.

It was morning, again. I worked on my routine and managed to get more done today than I did yesterday. All I ended up doing was fiddling with the microscope. It was easy becoming lost in something so beautiful.

I went for a run. It was overcast, not that I minded, and the city was muted grey like it was cowering away from the rain. The sun hit Phoenix like a security blanket and I watched as people took one look at the sky and grimaced.

I ran a marathon's distance back home. I remembered I had some late fees to pay at the library and returned the books I borrowed over a month and a half ago. I took the car this time, loading up the trunk with new clothes, and stationary I happened to find appealing. I bought an old black and white movie from _Buster's _around the corner from the main high school. The only surviving footage of the _Miracle Man _played before the actual film as a tribute and I shut the whole thing off.

I took a drink to bed and nursed it, quelling my thoughts before I read some more.


	3. Chapter 3: Groceries, Tea and Boxes

**A/N: Sorry for the wait folks! I had so much I wanted to accomplish in this chapter that it took me a while. We've got a chappy song here and it goes by the name of Don't Think Twice It's Alright by Mr. Bob Dylan.**

Enjoy!

(I'm lookin' for a beta if anyone's willing to help me out! It takes me a couple of days away from what I've written to ensure I have a fresh mind to edit. If I had a beta things would be a lot quicker! If not I'll do my absolute best to get things out on a set schedule.)

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**CHAPTER 3: Groceries, Tea and Boxes**

"So Bells?" Charlie's voice called out of the telephone that rested on the counter beside me.

"Yeah dad?" I was quickly chopping peppers and was very careful to not turn away from the sharp blade in my hands.

"Why Washington State? You're not coming here to keep an eye on your old man, are you?"

I laughed as I added the little red squares into the frying pan with onions.

"Of course not dad," I lied. Truth be told it just worked out better that way. Charlie and I would get to see each other more often and the full scholarship they gave me didn't hurt either. I sautéed the veggies then added the eggs once he began to drabble about _men not needing women to survive._

"You eat dad, but you don't eat _well,_" I quipped with a smile. I could imagine his moustache twitch with the same smirk he passed on to me.

"I sure do miss your cooking Bells. When do I get ya this summer?"

"In two weeks. I think I'll just shop for my dorm room there so that we can just drive on over on move in day."

We made some more small talk as I ate, discussing random things we've seen since the last time we talked. It was raining for the third day in a row in Forks, Washington and for the nth time since I moved back to Phoenix, he complained about not being able to wash his car.

"Take it with open arms, dad. You don't know how many layers of desert dust I have to scrub through on Renee's car. "

"Speaking of Renee, have you been to her house down south yet? The woman won't stop e-mailing me pictures," he grumbled

"Not physically, I was still in school when they took off for a week. She's trying to persuade me to live with them, something about vitamin D deficiency and the ocean's natural healing powers."

"That woman's something else, I tell ya." How my mother and father were compatible enough to produce me, I didn't know. They were like opposite sides of coins in two different currencies.

"Still a lonely Bachelor dad?" I said after a moment's silence.

"Bella, there comes a point in a man's life where fishing and women don't mix. I happen to be at that stage and am enjoying it thoroughly."

"What about Harry? He's got Sue and the kids _and _he fishes."

"Solitude, my dear Bella, suits me just fine."

"I worry about you dad…" I start. "It's just you and the cruiser out there."

"Well Bells, I'm a grown man and I can take care of myself. Besides, I've been busy doing some renovations. "

I looked wistfully at Renee's bright yellow rain coat hanging in the front hall. "Old habits die hard, I guess. I don't know what mom would have done had I not been here to keep watch." I laughed softly. In reality, taking care of Renee was one of the main reasons I left Forks in the first place. It felt odd having Phil around – I felt a mixture of betrayal and elation that she'd found someone capable of doing what I had done since childhood. I moved my thoughts back to Charlie.

"What's your favorite colour? I need to know so I can repaint your room."

"Green," I blurted.

* * *

The sky was startlingly grey when I left for my shift at the grocers. The parking lot was full with people trying to cram in their shopping before the sky split in two. Huge, almost black clouds loomed overhead and the air was thick with humidity. Without a doubt, a thunderstorm would be rolling in and I had the pleasure of sporting a helmet of frizz. As predicted, the store was busier than a normal Thursday morning would be. I took my position at the self-serve cashier podium and was patient with people trying to figure out how the touch screen worked. After three hours, I took a break and dug through the junk drawer in the staff kitchen for a rubber band.

The cramped bathroom offered little privacy. With a busted lock and a cracked mirror to boot, it reflected how little was spent on staffroom quarters and made me question whether or not a chunk of my paycheck went towards my boss' shiny new car. My guess was the former. The faucet had minimal pressure and never went past lukewarm. I slicked my hair back into a ponytail and splashed my face a few times until a knock at the door demanded me out.

"Swan, I need to drop a load! Hurry up!" Tactful as always, Andrew insisted on telling everyone his bathroom needs.

When I was back at my podium, a staff notice that wasn't there before was taped sloppily onto its angled surface.

_With the decline in the economy, we at Parker and Perry's Grocers have decided to make some cutbacks to the staff in Sectors F, L, and P. We are sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause. Please be prompt in arriving to the staff meeting next week – _

I read no more. My boss' fat handwriting sealed the notice with a photocopied scribble and I felt panic rise up in the pit of my stomach because I was at the bottom of the food chain here. Sectors F, L and P were all seasonal full time employees, students and trainees.

I spent the rest of my shift writing up a list of things I needed to buy with my employee discount for the last time. Each item was quadrupled so that I could pack the rest away for university. So much for a steady income. I was so grateful for my scholarship that I decided to look up the people responsible for granting me the eighty thousand dollars. I couldn't imagine burdening my parents with that amount of money. If I had to spend the next twenty years of my life paying them back, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

The shift ended uneventfully and I swiftly traded my navy P&P vest and ID for a blue t-shirt with a scoop neckline. There were some products scattered around the locker room that the girls in my sector left behind in the event of a hair emergency. With a careful hand I pried the rubber band from my hair and winced, yanking hairs out in the process. I emerged from the room with shiny mahogany waves and a tight smile on my lips as I passed the rest of the students. They were glumly digesting the fate of their employment.

I wasn't one to dwell on things out of my control.

With my Ipod on shuffle I strolled through the store picking up as many items as I could fit in the cart. I might as well use my fifty percent discount for the greater good. Greater good as in saving Renee from a trip to the grocers that would result in my – and Phil's – demise. She was an _experimental _cook.

I was doing one more run down the canned food aisle when I saw a man in a leather jacket zoom by the canned beans display. Long legs, dark jeans - of course, my mind made the connection to Edward Cullen. I wheeled my cart around to see if it was him. No luck. Just crates of whole wheat bread. I felt stupid for feeling excited and reprimanded myself. There were obviously other people in this city crazy enough to wear leather in a heat wave.

Even before I stepped outside the safety of the store I knew that that it was pouring rain. The smell of wet pavement clung to the air at the mouth of the entrance and for once, Phoenix reminded me of Forks. The rain even splattered onto the ground in sheets of white and I feared for the life of my groceries. Braving the downpour seemed like the only option.

Someone cleared their throat at behind me and I threw an _oh sorry _over my shoulder and moved my cart out of the way. I watched the person move past me, then stop in front of my cart with an enormous umbrella.

Of course.

"Good morning, Bella," he smiled.

"I had a feeling I might have seen you. You're the only person I've ever seen wearing a leather jacket in this weather."

Without taking his eyes off of mine, he shrugged out of the crinkled material, handing his umbrella into one hand and then the other and draped it over my head. He smiled in satisfaction.

"Wouldn't want you to get wet, Bella."

I couldn't form words so I settled for my signature blush and a small _thank you_. He smelled _divine._ I caught myself with another blush and met his eyes with an awkward peek out from underneath the lapels.

"Can I walk you to your car?"

I thanked my stars for the roaring thunder. It would have meant I had to fill the silence somehow.

He laughed when we found the SUV. "Your car is almost as dirty as mine."

"It's my mother's car. She never seems to find the time to wash it," I said while opening the trunk. I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes again. Edward was being awfully nice and even though we cleared the air the night before, I still thought he was out of my league. In the daytime, everything about him became more real and I struggled to contain my insecurity.

It didn't help that his pale skin and vibrant eyes made him look ethereal.

When I turned to face him, Edward was already loading things into the back. "You really don't need to do that. I can manage." I motioned for him to hand me the bag he held in the air between us.

He gave me a look that said _seriously? _before continuing. I hid my smile in a sigh. I didn't miss the way the muscles in his arm rippled when he pulled the laundry detergent out of the cart.

"You work here? I kinda saw you at the registers," he said with a slight smile.

"Worked," I stated. "I just got laid off."

"Oh," he said quietly. "I'm really sorry to hear that. At least you have more time to do what you want?"

I shrugged, "Yeah, I guess. Still sucks though."

We were silent as we filled the trunk. The way we were trying to fit the bags in was like toying with a puzzle. I was still trying to figure out how to act around him as we worked, what to say and how to say it. Last night's misunderstanding gave us some common ground but I couldn't find any conversation starters.

"Jeez, how many bottles of body wash do you need?" He asked with a laugh.

"I'm packing them away for university. Making use of my employee discount for the last time." I said curtly.

"Ah, I see. Smart thinking," he nodded. "Where you off to in the fall?"

I was leaned over the threshold, straightening up a temperamental pack of toilet paper at the far end of the trunk when I replied. "Washington State University, you?"

I didn't think anything of it when he replied with an _oh, _but when he stopped tossing things into the trunk, his silence struck me as odd. I chanced a look at him. Edward was smiling brightly.

I suddenly became very self-conscious. "What?" I took the opportunity to hand him back his jacket. Maybe it would be better if his muscles were out of sight. "Why are you smiling?"

At that his smile widened then opened into a, "Me too," joy dancing across his eyes as he said it. My lips mirrored his own and when my cheeks began to hurt, I began to giggle. His smile never faltered.

"Why are you so happy?" I asked. He rolled his eyes at me.

"Don't you know what this means, Bella?"

"No, not really. Enlighten me?"

"Well," he said, like it was a matter of fact. "It means that we can be friends without the guilt of having to separate in the fall."

I raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'd feel guilty?"

Edward shook his head with a frown before pulling his arms through his jacket sleeves. "You're very mean you know that? And here I thought we were making great headway." He tossed a stack of pizzas into the back grumbling a _how can people eat this?_ I was beginning to think Edward was a health freak.

I shook my head, "I'm happy that I know at least _one _person. I'll admit that."

"Bella?"

"Mhm?"

"Admit it," he said, taking a step closer to me. He cornered me so that I was flush against the side of the car leaving my back open to absorb the droplets accumulating there.

"Admit w-what?" His eyes did the dazzling thing again and though my back was soaked, I was grateful for having something to hold me up.

"Admit that you're terrified of going to university without knowing a single soul. Admit that you're just as terrified as I am at making friends, frosh week, parties, sex, alcohol, and even class. Admit it Bella."

I stared him down with a hardened expression. If it were not for the nervousness I felt, I would have flinched at his mention of the word _sex. _His eyes mirrored the churning clouds behind him, above him, around him. He was something so out of place in a city like this. He was a force all on his own and I couldn't understand why he was _here _talking to _me. _But last night…

A wide grin broke through my attempt at holding myself together. "Fine, I admit that I am terrified. I admit that I am glad that we'll be going to Washington together." I huffed with a residual smile. "Anything else you want me to admit while we're getting Bella to tell Edward all of her secrets?"

His smile turned into a smirk. "Yes, just one."

I narrowed my eyes and made my arms akimbo. "What?"

"Do you honestly like tea or has the moral of the story last night affected you this strongly?" He flickered his eyes to the stacks of green tea in the child seat and then at me, an impish grin making his eyes twinkle.

"I thought the moral of the story was for me to stop being an asshole," I deadpanned.

"I like that you're an independent woman who has a strong mindset – " I threw a box of Lipton Greens at his head, which he caught with surprising ease.

"Are you _trying _to decapitate me?" He said, voice rising a couple of octaves, eyes playful. "I have feelings too y'know or are you also trying to make me unfriend you?"

The way he stood before me, waving the box of tea around like a maniac made me burst into laughter. Looking up at his bewildered face made me laugh even harder – I doubled over clutching my sides until Edward joined in.

"U-u-unfriend you?" I managed to say.

Edward huffed, "Yes, unfriend you." His eyes were wary and so I decided to put the teasing to rest. Edward's persistence was admirable, and here I was not being gracious for it let along grateful. In reality, I was scared that he was going to dump me like everyone else did and I told him so. His face grew somber and for some odd reason I knew that he resonated with me – I knew that he and I were cut from a similar cloth. I ached for conversation, to speak and be listened to, to have someone be there for _me _and not only because we were family.

I studied his face carefully, watching the way his eyebrows furrowed as he told me how much he understood. It was normal to put up a fight whenever people got too close. It was normal to be paranoid of new people and not want to share things. I told him it wasn't that I didn't want to share. It was just that I didn't want to bare my soul to someone one second only to have them walk away the next.

What I didn't tell him and what I mulled over as we went our separate ways was the realization that I _wanted _Edward to ask me questions. I wanted him to know and prod and feel the need to reply back with an equally embarrassing anecdote or a sly remark.

I didn't know it right there and then, but I had a feeling that Edward was slowly integrating himself into my life. I wouldn't tell him no, but I promised myself that I had to tread carefully. Edward was absolutely beautiful to me now. His soul may be as old and deep as a well, but there was the absence innocence hidden behind his eyes that told me he had seen much more that I had and was scarred because of it. He was aged in ways I couldn't understand which drove me to find him even more interesting.

I was fixing dinner when Renee and Phil came home. I left the garage door ajar earlier to let some of the cool air find its way into the kitchen as I worked. I heard the doors slam shut in overtop the sound of their conversation. Though it was whispered, I gathered that they were arguing.

"Please just listen to me Phil, okay? Please? I can't decide between the two of you…"

I paused the spatula over the pot of pasta sauce on the oven sensing that whatever they were fighting about revolved around me. With my back facing the door, I craned my neck, hearing Phil's deep baritone.

"I understand, but I can't keep missing practice honey. I can't. If I had it my way I would stay, you know I would. But with the house there and the team there and my life _here _with you I'm also being pulled in different directions. Come with me," he pleaded. "Bella can stay with us too."

Renee sighed, probably wringing her hands– her habit whenever she was anxious. "Bella's always been moving around between Charlie and I. I don't want to choose for her anymore. I won't let her move with us for a month and a half only to have her move to Forks and then move to the university a week later."

My stomach churned. Already I formulated plans in my head. There were three ways I could see this play out. The first option was for me to pack up everything I owned, send it to Charlie and treat my month and a half long stay in Florida as a vacation rather than a temporary relocation. The second option involved me turning my two week visit with Charlie into my permanent living situation. The last option, the one where I was completely selfish and put myself first, was that I would live here until the end of the summer or at least until the house was sold so I could finish my English course and work on the things I couldn't since being wholly preoccupied with being a part time housemother.

"I leave on Sunday, Renee. The season's already too far in for me to do this. You're it for me. I'll wait however long it takes for things to get sorted on your end, so don't worry about what this means for us. Bella's your priority right now but she is the most capable eighteen year-old I've ever met. Ever," he added for emphasis. I smiled at that part. My pride was very much instilled in that fact. "Bella will be fine no matter what. If she chooses to stay here then I have no problem telling you she'll survive without us. Maybe even better."

"So whatever happens next is up to Bella?"

I couldn't stand it anymore. With a forwardness I didn't think I had in me, I strode over to the door and pulled it open. Both Renee and Phil jumped then looked up at me from the base of the stairs in shock.

"Bella!" My mother palled.

"You guys go. The both of you," I said with a smile, while walking down to their level. "I don't mind staying here, I don't mind moving in with Charlie, and I don't mind coming to visit before the summer's over."

They looked at each other. Renee's eyebrows puckered so tightly that I feared she'd get a migraine. "Bella you know I can't ask you to do that. A-are you sure?"

"Mom, Phil's right you know. I can take care of myself."

"Oh baby girl," she said, tears beginning to brim. "I know you can take care of yourself. But what kind of mother would I be if I left you here all by yourself?"

I looked her in the eyes as I spoke. "Mom, you _are _a great mother. You've always been and always will be. But I think that maybe your time to mother hen me is up. I'm leaving the nest," I joked. "It's really only a month anyway. I'm with Charlie for three weeks this summer, remember?"

Conflict was evident in her eyes so I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled her into my arms. "Mom, go with Phil. Don't be offended when I say this, but I think he needs you more than I do. And don't ask me if I'm sure. You know I wouldn't say a thing if I wasn't."

She grasped me tightly. Her beachy dirty blonde waves tickling my face as she cried. "Bella, thank you."

Phil joined in our hug and after we worked out what our _game plan _was we ate dinner and drove over to the moving supplies store and loaded the car with all that we could. We spent the remainder of the evening packing what I could and the duo continued even after I had to leave for class. Spirits had lifted dramatically in our little house. It was so contagious that I strolled into class with a smile on my face. It was so contagious that Edward smiled too.

I greeted him hello and before class even started he launched us into a conversation about the frustrating side of literature where authors would magically come up with solutions to large problems. When we were met with a lull Edward took the chance to ask me what was wrong. He pegged me. He told me that my face was easy to read. I told him everything about what happened earlier and though I was excited to be living on my own, I was still in a daze. Everything was changing so fast and it was hard to catch up with the world sometimes.

He nodded and rapped his fingers on the desk, mirroring the position I was in. Taking another look at me with those eyes, he smiled sadly.

"Bella? Why are _you_ lonely?"

With careful deliberation, I appraised his face seeing the god-honest question behind them. I don't know what struck me about Edward Cullen that day, but it was something that I couldn't let go of. He seemed so aged, despite only being eighteen at the most. His hands held the telltale signs of his youth, pale and unmarked but his eyes told me more. The way he looked so intensely at me, sincerely wondering why I was lonesome told me I wasn't just a story for him to take like everyone else was. I sensed the desperation in his words and I assumed it was because he wanted my story. Edward was a collector. Would he prize this latest addition like I would with his?

There was nothing I knew about him other than the fact that he was an only child with the handsomest face I had ever seen. There was a vibe around him that I was unusually comfortable with. As a result of my father's determination to make sure I would be safe in Phoenix by telling me cases he worked on regarding men and girls my age, I found it very difficult to trust anyone with a Y chromosome. I never got the sense that Edward would hurt me, a feeling of paranoia deeply engrained into my psyche.

It was oddly refreshing.

I had already decided that he was out of my league, already decided that I wanted to be friends and already decided that I had proved myself wrong. Edward Cullen _wasn't _an asshole. Edward Cullen was kind hearted, vulnerable and wondered about other people more than he did himself. And I saw so much of myself in him in that moment that I got choked up.

Do normal people ever get that way? Get so choked up that someone has given you affection, a conversation, words to fill your empty head? There's something truly marring about being lonely all the time. I blinked back the stinging sensation in my eyes. Edward wanted to _listen. _

And the words just started to flow.

I told him about Phil, about how he and Renee had met last summer at the grocery store during her whole-foods phase. She only cooked that way from now on, healthily. I blamed Phil for making us go on family jogs. I blamed Phil for the time I tripped on a weight Renee left on the stairs and sprained my wrist. I blamed him for having to find a job and a night class just so I don't have to hear the crash of furniture when they got together. I blamed him for taking my only companion away from me.

But I also blamed him for making her so happy and allowing her to love again.

So I told Edward I did what I had to do to ensure that this summer, they'd get to spend as much time as possible together. I rooted for them to get married while feeling slightly sore about my father who would be a bachelor for all of eternity. I told him why I didn't just live with him so we could be lonely people together, but the truth was that I felt like Renee kept me more occupied than Charlie ever did. Having an entire house to myself most days would just make me achingly aware of my own lonesomeness.

Ironically enough I would be all by my lonesome the entire summer.

I was lonely because Renee made me take care of her more so than she did with me. She wanted to be my friend when all I needed was a mother. She wanted to do everything all at once and changed her mind in a split second. Her spontaneity was enough for the both of us and so I was used on depending on her for all the fun stuff that I never got a chance to do them on my own or find friends to do them with.

Now, at seventeen, I've become the cross between my mother and father. One who's creative, but painfully shy. One who's incapable of being the center of attention. One who craves change but is too afraid to make it.

A gruesome cross indeed.

Edward looked at me differently at the end of my catharsis. "And you're okay with her leaving ?"

"Well, she has Phil now. I don't want to impede on their relationship. They really want to move to Jacksonville where he plays and so they'll be able to."

"You're going to Washington so you'll be closer to your father," he stated.

I nodded my yes.

"And where else did you get accepted?"

I sighed and hung my head. "It really doesn't matter, Edward."

"Bella."

"No, I know what you're going to say."

"What, then?"

"_You should have chosen where you wanted to go._" I said, mimicking him.

"But you _should_ have." He wasn't impressed.

He held my eyes in a staring contest, his arched eyebrow challenging me to speak.

"Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Texas, and Oxford."

He cocked his head to the side and seemed very incredulous.

"England?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you go there?"

"Money."

"And what about the other four."

"I said I wanted to be close to my dad. He doesn't have very many people around him, Edward. I want to be there for him. He was really sick two years ago. He needs me more than he'd like to admit."

"Bella, you're obviously very intelligent. You should go somewhere that would cater to whatever it is that you want to do."

"You're missing the point Edward. Money's tight, Edward. My salary, savings _and _both my parents' jobs couldn't pay for a year at any one of those schools. And on top of that, I need to be able to get to my dad easily. Why am I telling you this anyway?" I seethed. "I don't know a _thing_ about you."

Obviously, Edward noticed my temper. So when I tried to look up at the window for the moon and sighed when it wasn't there, he nudged my shoulder with his.

"Hey," he said. "Hey, Bella, look at me."

I did.

"I wasn't trying to upset you. I was merely trying to understand why you would go through such lengths to make sure everyone is happy except for you. It pains me to know that you turned down some pretty big names."

"They're just names, Edward. A school by any other name will still be just as good."

"What's in a name, that which we call a rose," he murmured.

"Romeo by any other name would still sound as sweet." Ha, _Shakespeared. _Once the Bard was right, he was always right.

I flipped open my journal hoping he'd let the subject drop. Both he and my father were on my case about it and it didn't help that I was being lectured by another person.

Mrs. Hayes' Celtic Woman CD skipped and so she settled for the silence of the classroom for once. Even without her inspirational CD I couldn't get a solid sentence out. I doodled instead. Edward bounced his knee. I looked at the clock. At the other people in class. Anywhere _but _at his face which was turned in my direction.

It wasn't even five minutes later when Edward's knee bouncing became very annoying. His desk shook my desk and I couldn't decide if the sound it made was _more _or _less _irritating.

"Edward, can you _stop?_" I hissed under my breath.

"Stop what?"

"Bouncing your knee. Please."

"Okay, sorry."

After a moment's silence he whispered my name. "Bellaaaah."

"Edwaaaard."

"Bellaaaah, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," I said into my book.

"I'm sorry first, you have no reason to be."

"I do. I got mad over something that makes perfect sense."

"Can we both be sorry then?"

"Sure." I faced him then with a smile.

His face softened into a smile before he frowned. "I'm lonely because I live alone, Bella."

It took a moment to register, to imagine him sitting at the dinner table by himself, to imagine him taking out the garbage but having no mother to tell him to do so. "But-but-you said you were…"

"I take online classes, by myself. In my pyjamas." His try at humor didn't stop the questions that formed.

"Where are your parents?"

He shook his head, and looked up to see my face contorted by understanding.

"It was a long time ago, Bella. It's okay."

"I'm sorry, Edward."

"Don't be. I could be around more people, but I choose to be alone. It's easier, y'know? I was granted emancipation and have been self-sufficient ever since."

I looked at him. I mean really looked at him. His eyes were dark under his lashes and the absence of crinkled lines when he blinked said more about the times he could have been laughing.

"No, I'm sorry about having to go through everything alone. Graduation, prom, shaving, making dinner, waking up. I won't do that to my mother. I won't do that to my father. And I won't do that to you."

He stilled for a heartbeat and then his entire face lit up so brightly he could have killed me with his beauty, if it were possible. "Have I just gained your trust?"

"Sure, add me on facebook."

"I don't have facebook…and what does trust have to do with it?"

"I don't like people I don't really know getting to see my pictures. I mean, how would you like it if someone waltzed into your living room and started looking through your albums? It's personal stuff and I like to keep it that way."

He laughed, and for the millionth time in one day I was hit with how handsome he was. Truly, it was a shame he spent his time cooped up indoors.

I didn't press Edward for more information. I kind of flung all my troubles at him and felt really ridiculous for doing so. In fear of ruining the good mood he was in, I opted to wait to quench my burning curiosity.

At the end of class, Edward and I were stuffing our faces with an entire pack of bubble gum. Half for him and half for me. We looked like chipmunks, but at least we looked like chipmunks together.

"Ey Berra," he called after me in the hall. "Ait ahp. I hive ooh a ide ome!" (Hey bella wait up. I'll give you a ride home!)

"Ooh ure?" (You sure?)

He nodded vigorously. "I ive afely, ont orry!" (I drive safely, don't worry)

"An I give oou ass money?" (Can I give you gas money?)

We doubled over so hard at my flub-up that I started drooling from all the gum in my mouth. How he still seemed so breathtakingly gorgeous was beyond me. He saw my chin dribbling with spit and laughed even harder.

He handed me a handkerchief from his back pocket and I took it with a grimace.

"Eere, ake it. Pwease!" He said between laughs.

I was mortified and threw the chunk of gum in the trash. My face heated to the colour of a fire truck as I wiped my face with it.

The drive home was quiet and at some point I drifted off to sleep. Edward nudged me awake and I mumbled a sleepy goodnight to him. Edward yawned, then I yawned and hastily got out of the car before I said something stupid through the sleep-induced fog in my head. He threw me his signature smile and drove off in his car to wherever he called home.

Before I wrapped myself up in my purple bed sheets like a taco I wondered: _Who kept a handkerchief in their pocket in this day and age?_

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**Lemme hear your words of wisdom. I think this Edward is cute. Adorableward is one of my favorites! **


	4. Chapter 4: Star Stuff

**A/N: I thoroughly enjoyed writing this chapter. Thank you for the reviews guys! I've got an outline of how I want this story to go so it's merely a matter of putting my thoughts down. **

**I love criticism (constructive only)! Also, if you see anything I need to edit, please (oh please!) let me know. **

**Song of the chapter is: Landfill by Daughter **

**Disclaimer: CECI N'EST PAS MON TWILIGHT, CHARACTERS, NOR SONG. (Please don't sue!) **

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CHAPTER FOUR - Star Stuff

In the middle of the night, I woke in a cold sweat. The AC had been acting funky all weekend and I had yet to grow accustomed to the heat of the night that smothered me as I slept. That still didn't explain the shivers I had. I took an extra blanket from the cabinet down the hall and wrapped myself up twice for good measure. When I woke up again at eight, the sun was already beating down on my face through the sheer curtains. What bothered me most wasn't the sun, but the slightly gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me something wasn't right with me.

Despite sleeping through most of the night, I felt tired. The sudden onslaught of fatigue as I showered was enough to make me crawl back into bed. Renee came into my room at nine wondering where breakfast was. She found me face down in my pillow, burning a fever of 102 degrees. After taking a cool bath, she and Phil took me to the hospital. I wasn't being very social, only answering questions about how I felt and what I ate yesterday. The doctor – a young, perky and blonde little thing – stuck her fingers under my jaw, in my armpits and my breasts, all of which I found to be tremendously sore.

After a couple of prescriptions all paid for by Phil – bless his soul – I was allowed to go home with a case of some bacterial infection in some obscure place in my body. My white blood cells were troopers, a little eager, but troopers none-the-less and so the fever subsided around mid-afternoon.

I found my mom in the living room packing the hundreds of picture frame she had placed in every place she could. The reality that they were leaving didn't quite hit me until that moment. I leaned against the archway and watched her remember the memories one by one and wrap them in last week's newspaper. Memories wrapped in memories. Boxed away to be unpacked in a strange place, gone from the place where they hung for eighteen years. I felt unbearably nostalgic. So much so that it physically ached for me to see my mother tear up at a picture of myself and my father when I was four. Kindergarten graduation – blue cap, rosy-cheeked an all. She sighed into a tissue before wrapping the macramé frame in the obituary section of the paper, a metaphor alluding to something I wasn't ready to think about.

"I wasn't fair to your father, Bella."

It was like watching myself watch my mother turning towards me. Renee rarely let me into her mind. Her face was scrunched with effort to contain her sobs. Seeing her cry sent an odd sensation plummeting into the pit of my stomach. I walked over to comfort her with an awkward crouch-hug. I sat cross-legged to make us level and she wouldn't look into my eyes. Instead, she unwrapped the photo and ran her fingers over my messy artwork. Glue, frozen in almost-clear droplets, visible in every gap.

"I took you because I didn't like the _rain. _It was _just rain_ Bella. I loved him when we left. I loved him when we were on the plane…but somewhere between Forks and Phoenix I didn't _want _to anymore. I felt the sun for the first time in years. There were days without a cloud in the sky and I couldn't miss Forks. I couldn't."

It occurred to me that my mother was recounting the story of why she and my father got a divorce. A subject which had been buried under cheap airfare and awful recipes-au-Renee. I listened intently, not wanting to pull her into a tangent.

"You were our honeymoon baby. Between finding stable jobs, the mortgage, preparing for your arrival I…I…" She blew her nose, "I had different dreams. I didn't want a small town life forever, Bella. I didn't want to be trapped there like his parents were. Like _everyone _there is. I wanted to see the world. I wanted excitement. I didn't want a white picket fence. I wanted sun and air and buildings. I wanted to hear cars honk through my window…it was always what _I _wanted. Never once did I think about what _he _wanted. What _he _was willing to do.

He didn't say a thing when I left you know," she sniffed. "He loved me enough to let me chase my dreams. Even if it meant taking you away from him. He didn't say a word, Bella. He didn't tell me to go, to stay… to do anything! He let me leave…and it was then that I knew that he deserved better than I could ever give him. He let me go after what _I _wanted and didn't stop me for a second to tell me how much it hurt him."

By that point I was crying. Silently, tears of understanding and utter sadness for the couple that had raised me separately commemorated their struggle. I began to realize how utterly different their circumstances were. My mother wanted more. She wanted this life. She wanted Phil. My father wanted what my mother wanted. And if that was to move to Arizona, take me away and find a new life, then so be it. He never spoke a word about how it shattered him inside. How he'd turn into a solemn alcoholic before realizing he needed to be a better man for _me. _How the cupboards in the kitchen were Renee yellow for years until he began to renovate. How it hurt to see me so little one visit and then the next a pre-pubescent girl battling to be understood.

"When I left, I didn't know I was pregnant. I drank, smoked, danced the night away, worked like a donkey to put you through school…I miscarried. You stayed at the neighbours while I went to the hospital. Charlie flew in and…a-and…oh Bella!" She sobbed harder now. "H-h-he came. He flew all the way here and took care of us. He paid for everything. The funeral, the hospital fees, groceries for a month…Bella your father stayed with us until I got better," she stroked the frayed salmon couch. "He slept here and made us food, tucked you in when I couldn't bear the thought of _killing _our baby…I felt like we were a family again, you know? He made me remember that it wasn't my fault. I couldn't be sad anymore. Not when he made everything okay."

The next time you went over there, I went with you. I was in the right frame of mind and needed to give him a proper thank you. I had the money I owed him in my purse and I swear, his eyes popped out of his head when he saw me. He wouldn't take the money and I considered leaving it there with you as your allowance. It was then that he told me he had a college fund for you the entire time. He started it the moment we knew you were coming. He was more of the parent that I was, I admit. I admire him so much. Bella…god I feel like a whore," she laughed bitterly. "I stayed with you for those three weeks. Your father and I became intimate again and I really thought that everything would work out. But then we started fighting about the divorce. Everything fell apart, I took you away and I could never think of Charlie as anything less than the greatest father on earth. I pitied myself for a long, long time. And I slowly lost the love I had for your father…only because I realized I never could be half the person I needed to be for him."

I wasn't feeling hungry. Especially not after hearing all of that. Sometime after Renee finished telling me her story I went upstairs and sat at the foot of my bed, eventually finding my way under the blanket. I felt around for my Ipod in the drawer next to me and flung it into the laundry hamper when I realized the battery was drained. How was I supposed to react when my parent's love story screamed _New York Times Best Seller? _Not only did my mother confess to her selfishness, but she confessed to cheating on her then-boyfriend Tom when she stayed for those three weeks. I saw the two of them in a whole new light. I assumed things fizzled out quickly after my birth. I didn't know how in love they both were at the time and that it was my father who too k the brunt of the pain, the anguish.

God, and _Phil. _I was worried she'd get tired of her dream life and dump him…though I highly doubted it. The complexity in their love – Charlie and Renee's – was intense. It brought a whole new meaning to the saying _if you love someone, you let them go. _Go away from you, from your life, your dreams, future, pictures, memories and everything. Just _let them go. _

A timid knock interrupted my train of thought. Phil was the only person who knocked in this house so I mustered a happy smile and, like the first time I saw _him_ in class, it was smacked right off my face.

_Shit, what the hell was I wearing?_

Seeing Edward stroll into my room flanked by my mother and her beau was as terrifying as it was hilarious. His face was contorted in this weird mask of trepidation and discomfort that I had to feel bad at. Renee's face said it all.

_He'd been Renee-ed, _I thought with a sinking feeling. _Oh my god. What did she say?_ I wasn't sure if his face confirmed my thoughts or if he was just uncomfortable with being ushered into a chair by my mother or if the series of words he and Phil were exchanging were nice. All I could register after they left were his eyes looking at me and my body and my room and his jaw as he turned to look around some more. He didn't say anything and after a while I groaned and sighed dramatically into my bed.

"What did she tell you?" I asked.

Edward didn't say anything. I didn't hear the shift of his leather jacket like I always did in class, nor did he mutter something under his breath.

"Edward?" I curled back up, feeling the soreness in my muscles from the fever as I moved. He had his arm bent over his eyes and his lips were turned down. I jumped off my bed, fearing the worst. How long had he been here? Did Renee unpack everything just to show him? Oh god, she thought he was my boyfriend. Ohgodohgodohgod.

I reached my hand to his and flinched away. My hands were still hot, a fever rising soon probably. I tugged on his jacket instead, until his arm gave, pulling his face down with it. He faced me with a different expression – defeat maybe? – but he still didn't speak.

"Please say something, you're making me nervous."

His lips parted and closed before he released a giant breath. "You're…you're…leaving?"

Oh. _Oh. _His eyes searched mine and I smiled softly, shaking my head with a no.

I didn't imagine what it would feel like to hug Edward, but when he did – well, more like tackled me into one – all I could feel were hard muscles and his arms squeezing the breath out of my lungs. Then I felt the oddest thing. The same curious buzz I'd feel around him _zapped. _Like _zapped, zapped. _An electric current connecting for the first time. The odd hum of electricity under hydro towers. Static. After the initial shock wore off, I became less tense. Edward cradled my head into his chest and rubbed my back. I didn't know what he was doing or why for that matter. It wasn't that it was unpleasant…but in one powerful wave all the turmoil I felt crashed into me and I pulled in a shuddering breath…

"I heard her," he said. "I heard everything. Phil and I were in the garage…I'm so sorry Bella…Bella I'm so sorry."

…and let it out with a strangled cry. If there was one thing about me that I knew for sure it was the fact that I was an _ugly _crier. I didn't hold back. I couldn't. There wasn't an off switch with Bella's Waterfall (open nine to five once in a blue moon), Bella's Snot works (usually when I'm sick) and Bella's Needy Emporium (co-founder a certain bronze haired safe-haven). With an agility I'd only known to be _Edward, _Edward carried me to the bed and pulled me into his chest. We were facing each other, his head bent over mine placing sweet kisses to my forehead, right hand stroking the hair from my face, left arm curled under my body and rubbing soothing circles into my back.

My cries were enough to shake the both of us. My cries were enough to fill the Grand Canyon and even be the rain Forks needed to be, well, Forks. Goddamn it. I cried for everything I held in my body. I cried for Charlie, for when he was sick. I cried for my little brother who laid preserved in some wall in some cemetery. I cried for my parent's relationship. I cried for my ignorance. The ignorance that had been shattered before Edward. I cried for the friendless Bella in high school. I cried for the stars I couldn't see anymore. I cried for shit-all. I cried.

And cried.

And cried.

I cried until I physically couldn't anymore.

And at the end of it all I cried for humiliating myself in front of Edward. I hiccupped several _s-s-s-s-sorrys. _Edward held me. Rocked me into some kind of oblivious calm where I just didn't give a single damn about anything that might embarrass me in the least. He eventually got up, revealing his destroyed t-shirt with a wonky smile.

"Don't worry about it. I'll ask Phil for one…he and I kind-of…bonded, you can say."

He was back in a flash, ironically enough, wearing a Flash t-shirt and cupping my pink wash cloth gingerly in one hand and a box of chocolates, movies and water cradled against his ribs. I watched, again mesmerized by the way he moved so surely. Glass of water here, movie into the DVD player, chocolates opened and ready to be devoured. I sat up against the headboard and scooted – thank goodness for double beds – so that he'd have more space.

Edward Cullen took my face in his hands gently and with the same care and ease that one might find within a painter's hand, he wiped away the snot, tears and sadness away from my skin. The way his eyes lingered on mine for a moment set fire to some alien parts of my emotive spectrum. I couldn't form any thoughts that _weren't _Edward. That was part of his magic. He captured all of my attention. Undivided were the cells in my body for this one fleeting moment where Edward was being incredibly…Edward. Perhaps he was magical. Destined to show me life through a new window. Destined to allow me the decency of one pseudo friend, approaching the area of _something else. _

"Your mom and Phil went out, you know. They begged me to stay," he said with his signature grin. "I shall comfort thee Isabella of Swan. Chick flick, chocolate and a hell of a guy to cuddle up with." I laughed a raspy laugh and he presented the water to me with a slight bow. I finished it quickly while he pressed play on the remote. "And I have cancelled class for us today. Called in and everything. Speaking of which, I do not have your number."

I recited it to him and made him call me and hang up so I could have his. "You'll text me, right?" I asked in a small voice.

"And call you," he added with a smile.

It turns out that the movie was _The Prince and Me. "_Renee basically threw it at me as she flew out the door. I'm assuming it's your favorite?"

"One of them, yeah," I blushed.

Edward was critiquing Edvard's racing technique the entire duration of the intro. "Which explains the dirt on your car, right?"

"Exactly," he said after a moment. "Chocolate?"

He chose two coconut crème filled ones. The look on his face was priceless as he chewed. Turns out he wasn't a coconut guy after all. Not loco about the coco in the least, apparently.

The thing about watching chick-flicks with a guy you kind-of-maybe-sort-of-now-have developed a major crush on is the problem of the _kissing scene. _Do you stare at the screen, unflinching and seem like a total weirdo? Or do you look away, pretending that you are wholly uncomfortable with the thought of kissing someone so passionately that they forget to breathe? Or (here comes the best part), do you look up at the person you happen to be cradled back to chest against hoping that they're not looking at you and secretly imagine what it would be like to kiss those soft, supple entirely perfect lips.

"Bella?" He said in the middle of their up-against-the-book-shelf make out session. "Do you want to go somewhere?"

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now."

I turned to face him, careful not to accidentally scoot my butt into his lap (God help me). "Okay, where? It's like 9 pm."

"Let's go for a drive?"

"Lets," I confirmed.

We took the highway for a half hour. Soon enough buildings gave way to houses and houses into open desert. Before reaching the city limits we parked on a shoulder. He wouldn't tell me where we were going or what we were going to do when we got there.

"Just so you know, this place holds not an ounce of significance to me."

I frowned. "O-okay so why bring me here?"

"Because I'd like it to be."

My gut clenched in the way that your mind imagines it to you when you have a feeling something's about to happen. A _good _something.

"So your mom told me you liked star gazing. It so happens that I have a blanket, a thermos of tea, cookies and…more blankets. I don't know what your mom was suggesting when she packed the trunk of my car but I think she's trying to make up for dropping quite a story on you like that."

"She can be a handful sometimes," I mused.

With a face twisted by his frequent _something else _look – I couldn't pinpoint it yet – he spoke. "At least she told you. Most people keep their skeletons until they turn to dust."

We unloaded the car and set up camp right beside it, letting soft radio music in through the windows. I was amazed by the vastness of the sky here. In forks there was nothing _but _stars on those rare clear nights. However, I never got a chance to truly appreciate them as I did now.

Edward's closeness didn't shock me as it did before. It occurred to me that it was more _natural _than anything. Like I've always held his hand in this way or allowed his arms to snake around my waist to pull me in closer as I sat in his outstretched legs. He leaned us back on the (recently, recently) unpacked couch cushions and together we marveled at the stars and at the hugeness of their significance.

"Star stuff," he noted. "Everything on this planet is merely start stuff."

"Merely?"

"Yes, why?"

"What about thoughts? Memories? Awareness of human consciousness? Is that all star stuff too?"

He peered down at me, eyes scanning my face, me looking up at him with a huge question mark upon my forehead. "You intrigue me Isabella Swan."

"Do you have an answer?"

"No, but I'd like to think that they're gifts of our consciousness…a kind of side effect of being made of something so wholly complex to begin with. The universe creates simple, efficient things…what if the creation of something so complex – that borders impossible – manifests itself into something even more so – because it's complex. The awareness of the complexity of being complex."

I felt my jaw drop. "W-w-wha?"

"Bella, I think your brain is smoking," he laughed softly.

"No, no, no. Wait, give me a minute." I mulled over what he said for a length of time. Looking up at the stars, sighing into the humid night air. "So if you say that complexity breeds consciousness…doesn't that mean that the universe is _also _conscious of its complexity?"

"As awesome as that sounds I don't think so. I think that the universe holds the complexity together and that it, itself, is just a space for it all to exist. I think that there might be a kind of designer though. What if the Universe _is _the designer? By offering matter a place to exist it helps it expand into this Beyond Universe that no one is able to really say exists."

"Well, who's to say that this all exists then? Who's to say that the Universe isn't this huge usurper eating all the matter it finds in its way, creating its own matter, new stars, new Universes? What if the side effect, if you will, of existing is _thinking _you _exist?"_

"Is existing one huge sham, then?"

"No, not if you do something with your existence. Not if you do something _good _with the matter, the complexity, the amount of _star stuff _you've been given."

Edward looks at me funny. I see his eyes, his lips and the star stuff he's made out of. I want to kiss him, and it's partly my move because he's right there and willing. I don't make my move even though every atom in my body is screaming for me to. But he knows. Somehow he knows and settles for a lingering kiss on my forehead.

Suddenly, he gripped my shoulders painfully hard.

That's when he tensed like the statue I thought he was made to be.

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**Hia guys! I love me some feedback. Grammar, spelling, etc, etc. Thanks for the help!  
**


	5. Chapter 5: Wednesday, Wednesday

**A/N: Hia everyone! Enjoy the latest chapter! As always, I enjoy your feedback. **

**Thanks for Reading!**

**-DD**

**Disclaimer: Why do we even need these things in front of every chapter. Le sigh. Anyway, these people belong to the great . I just borrowed them for a little bit.**

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**CHAPTER FIVE**

I heard the car before I saw its headlights. A deep grumble escaped from Edward's lips and I pushed away from him to get a better look at his face. All I saw was the side of his neck and his Adam's apple bobbing. His skin seemed to ripple as he clenched his jaw, a small scar-like irregularity becoming more pronounced just under his ear, like the shimmer of the ocean under the moonlight. The low roar of the car grew louder and when the creep of its headlights illuminated the road slowly, then all at once, Edward turned to me. He searched my eyes for a couple of seconds and I couldn't help but sit there, transfixed by the odd sense of realization that suddenly burdened his eyes. _Of what, though? _I asked myself.

As soon as the car passed – an exotic car by the looks of it – Edward relaxed immeasurably, laughing even. It was odd. He decided soon after that it was time for us to leave and we wordlessly packed the untouched thermos of hot chocolate and the blanket and pillows into the trunk of his car. He had several unnamed white buckets in there, spaced out meticulously in rows of two. Whatever they held seemed to be of value to him because they were locked in with a metal grill and padlock. I gathered that it wasn't important, perhaps a snazzy rock collection or a bucket-collecting hobby of sorts.

Edward tried his best to make conversation. He mainly took to asking me questions about how I was feeling and what happened during my trip to the hospital earlier. I told him about my upcoming trip to the doctor's in a few weeks and he offered to drive me seeing as Renee and Phil would be gone by the weekend. I apologized for making him miss English, but he laughed pointing out that it was more about the people rather than about the class itself.

I questioned him about this. If he was concerned about meeting people then why did he spend all his time with me?

"Well, you're people, right?" He replied. "I prefer smaller groups anyway. And a party of two is as small as it gets."

Before we reached the city limits, we stopped at a gas bar. Edward offered me an array of travel-snacks for the way back and I opted for a bottled water and granola bar if they had any. The car that sped by us earlier was out by the air pumping station with its hood up. I never really held a fascination with cars like that. To me, a car was a car and if it got me from point A to point B, then it was good enough. From the looks of it, it was giving it's driver some trouble. I could see the outline of a person blabbering on their cellphone, making animated gestures. Edward stood at the side filling up nearly a hundred dollars' worth of gasoline. He tossed me a cheeky smile and a "don't blow up the place" before heading in to pay and get what I requested.

Edward returned to his seat with a peanut-butter and almond bar and a water bottle with one of those sports nozzles that made funny sounds when you took it out of your mouth. I must say, as conversation lulled I ended up toying with it, effectively testing Edward's patience.

He gripped the wheel so tightly that I thought it would snap in half.

"Can you stop, please?" He asked tersely.

"Sure, any chance you're going to tell me what's eating at you?"

"No," he said, effectively closing the chance for further discussion.

I nodded, twisting my hands in my lap. Maybe tonight was overstepping the friends boundary we created. Well, I didn't ask him to crawl into my bed and watch movies. _But you did slobber all over him. _That was how I spent the rest of the car ride home, going back and forth with myself over what's and how's and what if's.

Whatever, I had a good time and I was dead set on not letting his sour-puss attitude ruin my fun. With a final _shluuuuk _of the nozzle in my mouth I winked at Edward, who stared at me incredulously before suppressing his smile by pressing his lips together.

When we passed by the Starbucks we went to a couple of nights ago, I looked the other way. I guess that I hoped for the potential of _something _with Edward, but it seemed strange. I didn't know if I was really ready to be emotionally invested in a relationship with somebody let alone ready to take that chance while I had practically zero supervision. It was like I had a built in parent in my mind, stepping into place whenever Renee or Charlie was absent. It guided me through my teen years, steering me far away from all things illegal, risqué or even remotely rebellious. Sometime during the drive, Edward turned the radio to an agreeable station playing soft indie music that comforted my ponderous mood. I stared out the window, seeing the browns and blacks of the world outside the car blend like watercolour paint on a canvas. It wasn't that I forgot about Edward's presence, it was just that he was so still and silent that he blended into the background.

I jumped when he spoke my name.

"Bella, we're here."

"Oh," I said, finally realizing that we were parked in my driveway. I saw that Renee had packed away all the silly knick-knacks that littered the front yard. It seemed barren, desolate even. My stomach tightened as I took it all in, making my face betray what I was feeling.

"Thanks for tonight, Edward. You made me feel tons better," I said with a tight-lipped smile.

He turned me, seatbelt unbuckled, his left arm leaned on the steering wheel and right arm playing with the pine tree freshener that hung from the rear-view mirror. I caught a whiff of it as it swung in the air-conditioned car air.

"Isabella?"

"Yeah?" I answered, not really meeting his eyes.

"I quite enjoyed myself as well. Can we maybe do this more?"

I smiled slyly, sensing Edward's shyness creeping back in. "Do what more, Edward?"

He looked down, frowning for a moment and then nodding, as if deciding something. "Hang out more. I want to hang out more outside of class…if that's okay with you," he added.

I blushed like mad. "Of course. I'd love to Edward."

"Can I pick you up tomorrow before class starts?"

"Sure," I smiled brightly, feeling a slight nudge of trepidation as I entered uncharted waters. "I guess this is goodnight?"

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight Isabella."

Edward leaned over the console and brushed my hair back.

"Let me walk you to the door?"

I paused. "Sure, I guess…I mean yeah. Yes."

With a smile, Edward walked around to open my door. All of a sudden I switched gears. Instead of being calm, cool and collected, I was a sweaty and nervous mess. I was sure he could feel how clammy my hands were, but he made no remarks about it. While we walked, our fingers brushed.

When we arrived at the door, Edward pulled me into a hug. His jacket was cool from the air he blasted from the car and it smelled like him. Something sweet, sultry and edgy all at once. I couldn't place it in the collection of scents I'd catalogued in my head but I was determined to figure it out. I snaked my arms around his waist and upwards, reaching towards his shoulder blades, pulling him near. From what I could feel, Edward was very, very muscular. It wasn't uncomfortable – his sturdy form was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't used to hugging people – males in particular – so his muscularity was an odd comparison to Renee's softness.

"Be safe," he whispered into my hair. "Goodnight Isabella."

"Goodnight Edward. Drive safely," I said, reluctantly pulling away from him. I felt all kinds of electricity. The pulsing of my heart drove the hormones in my body wild with desire. I briefly wondered if my face gave away exactly how much I wanted a kiss. I wondered if Edward could feel whatever insanity I was feeling. With a small smile, Edward pulled me in again, kissing my forehead. I did a little jig knowing that I wasn't completely alone in my quest for romance. He left me at the porch with a parting smile and waited for me to open the door before driving away with a wave.

_Perfect, _I thought to myself as I slipped into the foyer silently. _Absolutely perfect in every way. _Going into the kitchen, I smiled widely, becoming increasingly absorbed in my world of bliss as I chewed on my granola bar, purchased by none other than the object of my thoughts. Edward was insanely handsome. What he was doing being un-scouted by those mall-rat modeling agencies was beyond me. He had a face and body any designer would kill to have wearing their clothes. Hell, he'd be a stellar hand and foot model if that was any indication of his handsomeness. Even the hairs atop his messy little head screamed it. It crossed my mind maybe one or two times before that Edward was a prime subject for a study on the Golden Ratio. Since its numbers outlined the reason why we find certain individuals beautiful, it wasn't far off that Edward would match the criteria exactly, down to the very last decimal place. I promised myself that I'd look more into that. Maybe he'd let me take a ruler and see for sure.

Suddenly, the kitchen lights turned on and Renee was sitting on the bar stool across from me. I gasped and choked on a stray almond.

"Jesus H. Christ, mom! You scared the bejeebers out of me!" I exclaimed.

Renee was bouncing in her seat. "I take it that your date with Edward went well? You've been in this daze since you came in almost ten minutes ago! Ahh! I knew it!"

"Knew what?" I blushed furiously.

"You like him! Oh! Goodness, Phil! Come here and look at Bella!"

Phil came in, ducking under the archway that I assumed he and Renee were hiding behind.

"Well, would you look at that," he smiled. "She's glowing!"

"Oh god. Would you guys quit it?" I stood up to put the wrapper in the trash and tried to side step the terrible two, wanting so badly to escape to my room and avoid conversation. I wanted to keep my little piece of happiness by myself for a little bit, thank you very much.

"What happened? Did you like what I planned? Huh? Huh? Tell me, tell me, tell me!" Renee squealed. "He's just too handsome, where'd you find a guy like that honey? Oh, Bella, he's totally into you. Please tell me you two kissed!"

And that right there folks, is my mother. She encouraged me to branch out and meet nice suitors to help me with my lack of romantic encounters. _Love's is the most powerful when you're a teenager sweetie. Believe me, I know. _Well, what with the hormones flooding my bloodstream every time I got a glimpse of Edward, how could it not?

The prospect of love made me plant my but firmly into my seat again.

"It was nice mom. Thanks, really."

"Aww, baby girl, all we want is for you to be happy. It just so happened that happiness waltzed right up to our doorstep and asked if you were okay! He was so cute, all flustered and what not, looking around me to see if you were here. He even called me 'Ma'am!' Can you believe it? He's such a gentlemen, honey. A _very _good catch."

"Oh my god. Can I die from humiliation now?" I groaned.

"Bella," Phil cautioned. "He's a really nice guy. From what we could tell, at least. I think you must like him…you haven't denied anything yet," he said with a smirk.

"Well of course I like him! He's been my first and only date in my life. If you want me to tell you the evening was magical and that the fireflies came out to greet us as we drifted on an ocean of pure unadultered romance then I will! I'm floating on a cloud of happiness and I'm spinning on rainbows singing show tunes." I was breathing heavily, partly from the adrenaline of proclaiming my feelings to the eager listeners before me and partly from the rush of thinking about my evening in that light.

"I take it you really like him?" Phil asked.

"I realize that now, yes. I do," I confessed.

"Then you be careful, sweetheart. I don't want to see my future daughter getting hurt."

Future daughter…

"Holey Crow!" I yelled, looking to the huge yellow rock that adorned my mother's ring finger as she folded her hands on the counter in front of her. "You guys are getting married?!"

Renee gushed. "Yes!"

I couldn't contain my excitement, I nearly jumped over the counter and lunged at them. I took them both in my arms squeezing them tightly. "Oh my god, freaking finally Phil! I was kind of hoping you'd pop the question before you guys moved."

"Jeez Bella, way to be selfish," he joked. "Speaking of you, I got you a little something."

I pulled back, only to see Renee bouncing in her seat, tears of mirth gathering in the corners of her eyes.

"Seeing as I'm technically asking to be a part of your family, I saw it fit to ask for your permission as well." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet satchel. "I'm doing it slightly out of sequence, so pardon me, but Isabella Marie Swan?"

"Yes, Phillip Dwyer?"

He rolled his eyes playfully, and Renee clasped her hands to her mouth, containing her excitement.

"You know I've never tried to buy your affections, before, but I hope that it will work because this is sincere. Will you accept me as a step-father? I'll never try to replace Charlie – hell you don't even need him to father you anyway you're barely even a teenager," he said with a nervous laugh. "I promise to always be here for you emotionally, financially and for whatever else it is that you may need. I'll try my best to give you what I can from so far away. If it's postcards you want, I'll send 'em to ya. If it's mother-daughter time you need, hell, I'll ship Renee outta here on a plane faster than you can blink. I promise to always send you baseball tickets and when you pretend to know what we're talking about I promise not to be offended. If you're sick, I'll help pay for your bills. When you have kids, I'll have their college funds up and ready to go. With every pay check I get, I swear to you a portion of that is – and has for a while now – going to an account I've made especially for the down payment of your house.

Bella, I'll be there for you as a father, friend and punching bag for when I do something stupid like break one of your mother's ceramic pots. I'll feed her, clothe her and shelter her. I'll love her forever and I'll always, always put her first."

I didn't realize I was crying until I hiccoughed. I pulled Phil into a tight as hell bear hug and for the second time that night, I slobbered into someone's shirt. Renee joined in, rejoicing when I said a nasally "Yes!" to Phil. This man was fucking awesome. I thanked him so much for the support he was and would give me. He was not only well off because of his career, but he was financially literate and that thrilled me to no end. I often found myself cursing my parents for not being able to afford things as a child, but as I grew older I realized that it didn't take much to get by. A good family and a loving one at that made it an eager cross to bear.

He took the little bag and upturned it into my palm. A simple silver ring that had vines crisscrossing its circumference fell out. I put it on my right ring finger while staring in awe at it. I'd never been one for jewelry but this was perfect for me. It wasn't overly flashy – it was exactly how I liked it. Phil smiled and wrapped me in another hug. I mumbled my thanks quietly.

Suddenly, there was a knock at my door. Glancing over at the clock I wondered who would be here at a quarter past eleven. Phil motioned for us to go into the living room before grabbing the wooden baseball bat that rested behind the door. Renee and I watched from under the archway as Phil peered through the peephole. He laughed and opened the door.

"Well, lookey here!" He said gleefully with a smile directed at me.

His arm disappeared past the door, shaking somebody else's.

"Edward, very nice to see you again. What can I do for you?" He released his hand and pushed the door the rest of the way open. I saw Edward's panicked glance and I tried to hide my smile. Upon seeing me, he cocked his head, probably wondering why my cheeks were wet with tears.

"Renee, Phil, Isabella," he nodded. "I apologize for the late hour but I forgot that I had the blankets and pillows from earlier in the trunk. I was going to leave it by the door but then I heard you guys from the window," he said, gesturing to the one above the sink. "Sorry if I interrupted anything."

"Oh! Don't even worry about that honey," Renee said dismissively. "It was awfully nice of you to do that. Bella?" She asked, turning from Edward to me with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Would you be so kind as to bring the things into the garage? I believe the boxes are all marked – you won't have a problem packing them up."

"Uh, sure?"

I followed Edward to his car. We were at the top of the stairs when Phil called out to him, telling him to come back inside. He threw me a panicked look and I couldn't decipher the look on Phil's face to warn him about any potential ambushes. I had a hunch it would be something regarding me, though. I shrugged, covering the rest of the steps to his car as he went back into the house.

Renee closed the door behind him, but not before poking her head out and winking at me. I threw my hands up and flopped them back down. My stomach knotted itself. If there was anything about Renee and Phil that I could ever justify my death with was this: death by humiliation. Would there be a show of my baby pictures or worse, would they pull out my old ballet videos and school photos? Gah, I couldn't think about it without feeling self-conscious.

I opened the trunk to Edward's car, taking the pillows and blankets into my arms. I went around to the back door and stood in the dim light looking for the propped boxes. When I found them and packed them away, I went back to Edward's car and sat in the trunk, dangling my feet over the edge.

A small breeze drifted through, rustling through the leaves making the night sound like an auditorium filled with applause. Yeah, I wasn't sure if I could face Edward now. If the trees were trying to give me courage to walk back in there, they were failing. I couldn't fathom what he was being told – what embarrassing story they'd put into his brain that he'd surely use as blackmail later on. I brought my feet up and rested my head on my knees. I paid attention to the sounds I heard in the distance. The bantering of a couple a few houses away, the screeches of cats as they wrestled over their territory, the horns of cars and the whirring a train not too far away.

Today was Wednesday. Looking back on last week, I realized how dramatically things had shifted for me. I'd met Edward at the beginning of the week, on Monday, and already I felt attached to him. It wasn't that I'd changed, no, that wasn't even half of it. I never felt this way about _people. _It was Edward. Edward and his magnetic personality. Edward and his sly jibes and immensely addicting stories. Edward and the way he'd look at me and the way he seemed so keen on taking care of me. I didn't mind, in the least, but it left me winded. Edward happened all of a sudden.

He was suddenly and irrevocably in my life and I couldn't be sure if he would disappear just as quickly as he came. It was an incredible coincidence that he would be attending Washington State in the fall, but with a pond much bigger than the one he had available to him now, would he find something else to attach to? _It has only been three days, Bella, _I told myself. _Get a grip! _

Yeah, and it already felt like everybody was conspiring against me. Jesus Christ! What were they doing in there? I looked back at the house behind me. Laughter filtered through the window and I assumed the worst. Whatever, I can have a party of one. Seeing that Edward's keys were still in the ignition, I hopped from the trunk and went into the passenger seat and turned the key until the battery turned on. The radio station was where we left it, this time playing a whiny number with repetitive lyrics. I flipped to the AM stations and settled on one that played non-stop oldies.

I hummed to the songs that I did know, learning that the less I focused on the present situation the less I panicked about it. After ten minutes, I began to yawn. That led to me being bodily aware of the time it was. My body realized that it was no doubt time for bed and so I reclined the seat and snuggled into the warm leather. With the low crackling of the radio accommodating the music, I fell asleep almost instantly. The white noise lulling me away.


	6. Chapter 6: Won't You Tell Me?

**A/N: Hey readers! This chapter is a long one. I cried hysterically while writing/reading their lines. I hate a few things in this world and this chapter contains most of them. Very close to my heart and too personal to leave out of this story.**

**Song of the Chapter: Medicine - Daughter**

**Enjoy, enjoy. Let me know what you think and how my words affect you. I need to know if I can convey emotions in my work.**

Le Disclaimer: SM owns Bells and Eddie. I own this story and plot. 

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX: Won't You Tell Me?**

Fucking goodness gracious god almighty. No one was budging. I asked Phil. I asked Renee. I called Edward friggen five times only to be denied five times. Would anyone spare me? I was in the process of packing up the kitchen stuff, saving the few necessities I'd need all the while tormenting myself about the lack of knowledge about whatever the fuck was going on.

"Damn you all," I mumbled.  
The swearing. Oh the swearing. I was sailor when I was mad or frustrated. I cussed internally, not really wanting to reveal this side of me to the cups I was wrapping up with the sheets of newspapers at my side. Around noon, Phil and Renee went to get lunch, popping by to give me my share and then left again, leaving me to my miserable thoughts. I had a movie playing in the DVD player just for some background noise, another inconsequential romance movie with a predictable plot, I might add. Girl meets boy. Boy is unattainable. Boy is with other girl. Other girl is evil. Boy hangs out with girl. Other girl is dumped. Other girl plots her revenge. Other girl loses. Boy and girl lives happily ever after.

And so on and so forth.

I had my laundry in the machine. I had dinner in the oven, slowly roasting to a golden crisp. I had my to-do list all crossed off before two o'clock and really had nothing else to do after that. In the morning, the realtor came and told us the house was sold and that the couple would be moving in after I left for Charlie's in late August. With a little over five weeks left, I was sure time would pass quickly. Soon, Edward and I would be in university, living the educational dream set out for us by our forefathers.

I figured that I might as well make a list of things to buy for when I got to Charlie's in two weeks. I went upstairs and flicked on my desk lamp cursing when the bulb sizzled.

"Goddamn it!" I groaned. I stomped my way down the stairs and into the garage. From here I could hear the movie playing a sappy ballad that I knew some of the words to. Luckily, I found a light bulb left out on one of Renee's old work stations. It was covered in dust – as were many of her other unfinished projects – but that wasn't the reason why I had no idea what it was. The globular looking object used to be soft clay, but now it was hard, baked by the oven that is our garage into some unidentifiable shape.

On my way to the kitchen, I flipped off the television and grabbed a tissue off the floor – the coffee table was sitting out by the curb – and dusted the delicate glass. I replaced the old bulb with the new one and sat down, sighing into the rickety pine chair. I balanced on three of the legs then leaned back onto the other one, bobbing back and forth as I did so. I knew I needed everything. I had nothing to bring except my clothing and books – no other personal artifacts to carry with me into my new life. I wasn't one to horde junk. If I didn't use it, it was donated. If I didn't need it, I didn't buy it. If it brought back painful memories, I'd throw it in the incinerator, like I did with the journals I wrote in when I was younger.

I started with things for the bathroom then moved on to toiletries and body products. I got through the kitchen items fairly quickly and had to continue on another sheet of loose leaf paper. Not having to worry about tuition freed up my savings. Admitting that I wanted to splurge a little on myself was the first step, listing the things I wish I had but never had the money to get was the second. Soon I had a list five pages long and a budget of nearly a thousand dollars.

I called my dad as soon I finished the laundry and pulled together a salad to accompany the roast beef and peas. He picked up on the fourth ring with a gruff _yello? _that quickly morphed into an _Bells! How are you feeling? What happened? When are you coming?_

I answered truthfully: great, just a fever, still in two weeks.

Here came the hard part. Renee entrusted me to tell my father that she'd be leaving me alone for the better part of three weeks because she was moving to Jacksonville without me. I wasn't sure how Charlie would take it. I _had _to stay to tie up the loose ends. I needed to pack up every single remaining object in the house and take care of where their new home would be. I needed to give the house a deep cleaning – I'd find a way to get Edward to help me with this one – and patch, prime and paint the walls to a standard white.

If I were being honest, I'd say that doing all these things didn't bother me. I loved the independence and trust my parents bestowed upon me. It made me feel important, needed and useful.

"Dad?" I began. "I think it might be best to move my stay to the end of August." I held the phone cord in my hand, and watched it bounce against the wall as I pulled it back and forth.

"What? Why?" I cringed, hearing the disappointment in his voice. "You just said you were coming in two weeks!"

"Mom ah, she's moving to Jacksonville."

"Yeah," he said, drawing out the _y. _"I know."

"I'm not going to go with them. It doesn't make sense for me to go for a week, come back to go visit you then go back for two weeks only to come back again."

"What do you mean go for a week? They're moving this–"

"Sunday, dad."

I could almost see his hand coming up to rub at his chin. I heard the scratch of his scruff on the phone. "So you're saying you want to move your next visit end to end with the one before school?"

"Mhm." I had no idea what he was going to say to that. I was stuck here and even if I wanted to –which I didn't – I couldn't.

He sighed, blowing his discomfort of the situation into the receiver. "I don't like the idea of you all alone down there."

"You could come and visit? Renee and Phil won't be here to bother us," I suggested. "Maybe you could help me patch up the walls?"

"I already booked off vacation time anyway so that sounds good."

"You're okay with it?"

"Yeah, you'll only be alone until I get there," he grumbled, clearly not too happy with the arrangement.

"I'll be fine dad, don't worry. I'll see you soon?"

"Yeah, see you soon."

Before he went, I told him I'd be sending him boxes upon boxes of the loot I gathered from my ex-employer.

I took to packing up the remnants of miscellaneous kitchen items for Renee and Phil to take to their new house. When the boxes were full and I had nothing left to pack, I taped them up and pushed them to the garage door knowing fully well that I couldn't pick them up _and _not drop them. At a quarter to five, I went to get the mail. I heard the hinges of our dolphin mailbox screech open and closed from where I sat in the kitchen, a cup of steaming tea cooling down in front of me.

As I opened the front door, I saw a thick manila envelope sticking out of the dolphin's back. From here, I could see messy handwriting sprawl across the front, addressing it to myself and to my mother. Along with bills and several flyers for some shops in the area, I carried the package to the table, the little sticker on the top left corner making my stomach twist in a cold panic.

Either St. Joseph's Hospital was sending me a three-ring binder of the dos and don'ts of a fever, or Phil's debit card bounced – which wasn't likely. With shaky hands I cut the top of the envelope, flattened by being filled to capacity.

_Exploring Your Options…_the overly joyful folder said. With a frown, I flipped to the inside compartment, seeing the letter head of our insurance company alongside with an official looking hospital statement printed on thick cardstock.

My mouth went dry.

There, on the left pocket, held words regarding my invalid need for treatment. Invalid need? Invalid need?! "_Your insurance company, WIALD AND PENT, denied your request for coverage. In the following package you will find several pamphlets regarding your options during this time. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call…_"

I didn't understand. Why would I need insurance to cover a fever? My prescription was paid for out of Phil's pocket and the time we spent at the hospital was more than covered as far as I knew. Blood tests, IV, food – the regular things that happened when people try to get to the bottom of an unknown issue.

But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that our _request _had been denied, meaning that there was a second request which was deemed in-fucking-valid. I pulled out the second piece of paper in the folder, again printed on expensive paper, and read through it…my heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach.

"_It has been ruled by our lawyers that investing in your child's health is and will be for naught. We have read through the hospital's diagnosis and projections for the next year and have gone through the necessary measures to ensure that this decision is in the best interest of your family. We will see to it that the premiums you have paid on her behalf are frozen in the account for any potential beneficiaries."_

I was beginning to feel the coldness of both letters seep through my skin. Though I wanted to remove my hands, I couldn't. They didn't outright say what was wrong with me. They were alluding to some sort of elephant in the room, looking over their shoulder as they typed the words out. I closed the folder and then dumped the rest of the envelope out onto the table.

Words like: _How To Deal With a Terminal Illness, What To Do When It Happens To You, Living Life To The Fullest _and – the more upfront – _Dying? _flashed before my eyes. There were dozens of pamphlets all alluding to the same elephant. As my head sunk into my hands, realization sunk in with it. My father had beaten it.

And I would never get a chance to.

…

I felt like I was floating on a cloud. Instead of rushing to the bedroom like I wanted to, my lead feet carried me to Renee's room, to her desk and into the hidden compartment that I now knew housed Charlie's love letters to her. I pulled out a similar looking envelope – the one I saw tucked into Phil's pant pocket at the hospital because Renee had forgotten to bring her purse – and brought it back to the kitchen table. Opening the worn flap made me tremble. Pulling out the plain piece of paper made my throat constrict. Reading the first lines made the tears carve their way down my cheek. Reading their _we regret to inform you _made it seem surreal. Reading the line that sealed my fate to the _other side _in less than a year made me shiver. Seeing the word _Leukemia _printed over and over again made me stop reading.

Made me feel number than I could ever remember feeling.

The tears came automatic now.

I felt a surge of indescribable pain shoot through my chest and into my abdomen. Anguish consuming me from the inside out. I didn't realize that I was taking in heaves of oxygen until the rattle of the doorknob pulled me into awareness. I didn't realize that I was convulsing with each breath when I looked up and saw Renee, Phil and Edward shaking like there was an earthquake. I didn't hear how hysterical I sounded until Edward had me against his chest, murmuring words I knew weren't true. Renee scrambled to pile together the heaps of paper on the table and Phil moved with her, trying to calm her down enough to stop the wetness that was running down her cheeks.

Edward, _my _Edward. His body took my shakes and tremors and used it to produce his own. He hunched over me like I was hunched under him and took my tears as his tears. He didn't hold back his strangled breaths as he nuzzled into my neck.

"I can't do this to you. I can't do this to you," I chanted. "Edward, you have to let me go. Let me go!"

"You're going to leave me anyway, Isabella. Please don't make me leave. I want to be h-here!"

I couldn't remove myself from him despite how badly I wanted him to save himself the pain. I refused to let him see me waste away. I didn't want him hunched over my bed in the hospital as they tried to let me die comfortably. I wanted to burn those images from my eyes, they reminded me so much of my father's bout with the disease.

I could hear Renee and Phil in the background, standing over us as they both cried. I peeked out of Edward's arms enough to pull them down. All of us, latched onto each other, trying to find the sense in the world. Had I done wrong? Was my life such an immeasurable blip on the Universe's radar that I was given an 'undo'?

After a half hour, Phil decided that he was going to take Renee out to the beach. We all stood up, me with my body wracked in coughs and dry heaves and Renee, clutching and grasping at her midsection like she was going to part in two. She hugged Edward fiercely, telling him how sorry she was. Edward's eyes were dry, but he shook and shook – shaking his head in a perpetual no – until Phil came up to him and steadied him with a hug. I stood in the background, imagining the scene in a different circumstance where I was buried only hours before. The trio was a circle of tears and soothing whispers. Renee ran her fingers over the back of Edward's hair, whispering something to him that I wasn't sure I wanted to know because he turned back to me and then back to her, almost collapsing in her arms. Phil had a hand on Edward's shoulder, speaking to him in words I was too far away to hear. He was an arm's distance apart, but Edward crossed that in a second, pulling Phil into a red-faced, tear-streaked hug.

My mother, my mother. She stared at me and threw me a forced smile. None of us addressed it directly, but they knew. They all knew and I was the last to know. She crossed the room and grabbed me me into a hug. I filled every person I touched with pain and sorrow. That fact did not escape me. Phil and Renee left, leaving Edward and myself in the silence my shaking breaths provided.

His eye bags were dark and puffy, his bottom lip stuck between his teeth. "They told me last night," he mumbled. We were sitting in the shadows of the kitchen, cross-legged in front of the oven with the roast growing cold.

"How did you sleep?"

He looked at his hands, tangled and pressed firmly against each other. "I didn't," he whispered. "I can't lose you."

Even though he didn't look at me, I feel the hidden meaning in his words. Death changes everything. It was as if the fast forward button on my life was broken and everything was coming at me from all sides.

Bravely, I crawled into his lap, scooting my butt into the hollow his legs made. I felt his jeans under my thighs, cooling my skin. I tucked my head under his chin and he wrapped his arms around me, rubbing his cheek against my hair, lips kissing my forehead.

I shivered from his coolness, from his proximity and from the feelings I had welled up inside of me that told me that friends don't feel this way about each other. That told me I shouldn't be letting him enjoy this if I was going to slip away from him in a matter of months.

"I have health issues of my own," he sighed. "My blood doesn't like to circulate under my skin. That's why I wear my leather jacket because I'm freezing all the time." As if to prove his point, he took his jacket off and shivered. Blanketed it around my shoulders and for the first time in my life, I felt Edward's skin sear through mine. A current of electricity melding the points where we touched. "If I could wear a winter coat all the time, I would."

"I like the cold."

"My skin doesn't bother you?"

"Nothing about you bothers me, Edward," I said, addressing his chest.

Edward nodded into my hair, breathing in deep. "Thank you."  
"How did your parents die?"

"Melanoma," he said without hesitation. "They both worked as volunteers with the Red Cross in deserts and stuff." I tripped over his words. They were the push I needed to convince myself to leave him. I pulled him closer, tighter than I should have. I felt his lips move against my forhead in a never-ending surge of kisses.

"Did your parents have what you have?"

"Yes."

"Can you go out in the sun?"

He chuckles lightly, sending his breath swirling down my face. Like the rest of him, it just smells like Edward.

"I can, but I prefer not to. It's a side effect of what I am. A hermit."

"You are not a hermit."

"If you say so," he sighs. "But yeah. My skin hates the sun. It's something I've learned to live with, hence night courses."

"Oh, that makes sense." I nodded, but outwardly voiced my confusion. "Why Phoenix then? It's almost always sunny."

"The warmth," he says. "You're so warm. It feels so damn good." And as if to show me, he nuzzles into my neck, hands roaming under my shirt to rest on my hunched back. His skin is cool, like he said, but not uncomfortably so. I love the feel of his skin on mine. A thought tumbled from the darkness that was taking over my mind. _What would I do about Edward? _Could I let this whatever-it-was take its full course? I decided it wouldn't, and that thought cut me deep.

"After a while, my skin takes to the heat. See?" He presses a hand to my cheek and I rub my damp face against him, sighing in content. "Warm?"

"Hm?"

"I'm warmer right?"

"Oh," I said dumbly, loving the way the shadows hide my blush. "Yes, definitely."

He keeps his hand there, stroking my face, smoothing my hair, playing with my earring-less earlobe. "You aren't pierced?"

"Never had a need to. But I want to."

"We'll go."

"Will you hold my hand?"

"I can pierce your ears for you," he said, rubbing at my ear. "It's not hard."

"Okay," I nodded.

"Okay, not now. I'm too comfortable." He laughed against my hair again and I realized that I love the way it's short and easy. I felt the vibrations in his chest and move my ear to his sternum. _Farewell, sweet sound._

Edward suddenly pushed me away and looks me straight in the eyes. "Come somewhere with me?"

I nod and with me cradled in his arms, he carried me upstairs to my bedroom.

"Is this where we're going?" I ask with a laugh.

"No, but I want to make sure you're bundled up. It might be cold – mind if I pick your clothes?"

"Go right ahead, I'm just going to take a quick shower."

He's already inside my closet, sifting through my hangers and smiling as he does so. I closed the door to the bathroom, still able to hear Edward through the wall. I leaned my head against the tile the entire time only lifting it to wash up and shampoo my hair. My mind was in chaos. Thoughts running amuck, all of them surrounding what I'd do with Edward, with my mother, father and Phil. What would I do about school? About friends? How long would it take for my body to surrender to the disease, leaving me bedridden and hospitalized? Chemo was out of the question, making my death easy and comfortable was not. I already saw it. I envisioned myself barely making a dent in the mattress I laid on for weeks on end, wasting away.

I didn't feel sick. I didn't look sick. But the inside of my body was already deciding my death for me. My bone marrow was useless in producing functional lymphocytes and red blood cells. At least I knew that I was pale for a reason.

I washed automatically and shut off the water as soon as it ran free of bubbles. I didn't hear him come in, but Edward left a pile of my clothing – undergarments and all – on top of the toilet seat. I didn't care if he rifled through my underwear. In fact, I wondered if he was a fan of matching sets because that's exactly what he picked out.

I dressed, feeling the clothing stick to my still wet skin, and towel dried my hair. I brushed my teeth methodically, staring at myself in the mirror. I saw me in all my cancerous beauty exploding in front of me, and it took me a second to register what I was doing.

My hands were bleeding, still holding the glass cup I used to smash the mirror in. Again and again, I clawed at the shards until I heard the splinter of wood behind me. I turned, finding Edward with his face contorted in concern rushing towards me. On his knees, he held my hands in his own. He picked me up with great difficulty, I squirmed and tried to push myself away from him screaming all the while.

"I can't! Edward, let me go! Go home! I never want, no, I can't let you stay. Please go!" I sobbed, choking my words at every syllable, but Edward cradled me, forced my arms to my side and rocked me back and forth. His breath was blowing choppy and cold against my face and I still thrashed against him, pleading for him to leave me alone. He brought me to the kitchen and set me on the counter top. I was sitting with my knees tucked in, mimicking the rocking motion Edward tried to lull me with. I was staring at him, he wasn't looking at me, but at the empty space he left between us after he wrapped my hands in a dish cloth. A few superficial wounds decorated my palms. I'd live.

For now.

With a thick swallow, I watched the muscles and tendons in his neck work. Stretching and protruding out of his sick skin. He leaned on the counter top, hands balled into fists at his sides. He was on the edge of a shadow, staring at the fine line between getting cancer and not getting cancer. He rubbed his face, fingers digging hard lines into his beautiful, beautiful skin.

With his eyes downcast, he moved towards me. His socked feet padding across the linoleum silently, grace leaving him with every step. He tossed the cloth into the garbage bin, taking another and dabbing at the small cuts, analyzing them for any glass fragments. My palms were sliced and having done my research for my father years before, I knew I would have problems clotting as I always did. Now that I knew the reason why that happened, a small part of me panicked.

Edward's face, when he finally looked up at me, was strained. His nostrils flared and I worried he was going to break down again. He took antiseptic from the first aid kit under the sink and watched my eyes carefully as they stung and burned with tears from the alcohol and tears from everything else. He bandaged me up, put my shoes on and carried me out the door. He went back in the house to fill his backpack up with water and food before coming back to me, sitting in the driver's seat with the key gripped tightly in his hand.

We went to the pharmacy, him leading me in and out of the store to grab a tube of skin repair ointment and gardening gloves.

When we were back in the car, he unravelled the bandage and revealed a smattering of pink blood stains, an outward sign of my body's rebellion. With tenderness in his eyes and movements, he covered every inch of my hands in the ointment, re-wrapped my hands in new bandages and carefully slid the gardening gloves in place.

"Edward…" I began.

"Bella, I'm hurting too. I just need time to collect my thoughts. I'm not angry with you. Just angry at the world."

"Me too."

We drove in silence. Edward had one arm around my shoulders, the other leaning comfortably on the windowsill. Night was falling, and the sunlight that danced in the distance made Edward cringe.

"Do you mind if we wait out the sun?"

"No, of course not."

"Thanks, Bella."

I nodded, and he reached for his cell phone, taking the black slab and plugging in the audio jack that fed into the car. We listened to low acoustic music and watched the sunset from our parking space on the side of the road. When the sun was barely there, Edward`s breathing became erratic, and I realized he was on the verge of tears. I slipped out of my seat belt and reached under his seat for the release, moving it to the furthest position it could go. I perched myself on his lap, taking his arms and wrapping them around me. I scooted up so his face was level with mine and tucked his head under my neck. Pressing my lips to his forehead, I breathed in his scent. I nuzzled my head into his hair and sighed, running my fingers through the thick strands as I did so.

"That feels good," he mumbled into my neck.

"Yeah, I know."

I continued massaging his scalp, completely aware of his ear pressed against my chest, listening intently to the countdown my heart was thumping out.

"We met four days ago."

"It doesn't feel that way, does it?"

"No, it feels like I've known you my whole life."

"Edward? Can I ask you something personal?"

"That's a loaded question. Regardless, shoot."

"Haha," I smirked. "Good one. Promise not to get mad?"

"I'll try."

"Okay," I exhaled sharply. "Who was I to you before yesterday?"

Edward hummed into my skin. Swallowing down my self-consciousness, I waited for him to answer.

"You were Isabella Swan, friend, companion and understated writer."

"Did you like me?"

"I've always liked you."

"No, no." I blushed. "Did you _like-like _me?"

"Yes," he whispered. "More than I should have."

"How many girlfriends have you had?"

He was silent, and I felt my shoulders slump fearing that I was another notch in the bed post. But, but…knowing Edward, I knew I wasn't. He wasn't the type. Not even remotely.

"Stupid question," he muttered. "None."

"What did you think of me yesterday?"

"I wanted to hear you insult me again," he laughed. "Anything is better than sad Bella."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I thought that you were incredible, cute, funny, headstrong and unbelievably stubborn. I still do. I didn't take you for the chick-flick type, but hell. If that's what you want me to do, I'll do it." After a pause, he spoke again. "Bella the universe is being selfish with you. It doesn't want to share." He pulled me closer.

I nodded into his hair, glumly understanding how he saw it that way, and readjusted in his grasp so my nose fit with the curve of his head. Carefully, I asked him the question that I've been skittering around. I wanted to hear him say it, but in reality, I couldn't bear to hear him say it. "What do you think of me now?"

At this, Edward leaned into the headrest, looking at me with a peculiar expression. A cross between amusement and something else. His eyes were dark in the shadows the sun left behind, but it's the depth in them that pull me in. "Isabella, if I answer that question, know that I will refuse to let you go."

"Edward…I don't want to hurt you."

"I hurt regardless Bella. You make me happy, and it's worth it. Please. _Please, _Bella. Just try. Please."

"I can't. I can't, Edward." I felt my sob balling in my throat, clutching at its confines with steel wool hands. "I'm going to die and leave you all alone. And then what?" I said loudly, not thankful that the force is enough to dislodge the tears. "You're going to visit my grave and cry. You're going to curse me for ever falling– " I catch my slip and begin again. "I'm not going to make it, you know that! And I can't and won't do that to you."

I looked into his eyes with my dying ones, with the ones I won't see out of in eight months' time. I saw myself reflected in them, and then they closed. Opening up with resignation, he nodded and pushed me off his lap and onto the console between us.

"Do you want to know what I think about you now?!" He yelled. I'm taken aback by his harsh tone, by the anguish in his eyes. I slide down to my seat, but keep my eyes on him.

"Please don't say it," I whispered.

He stares me down, turning my skin into gooseflesh both from attraction and fear. I didn't want to hear him say it out loud. It would mean that it's out there for the universe to take a hold of and destroy with its fat fingers. Edward's eyes melt.

Then his face scrunches up, contorted with unshed tears. "I think you're wrong. You already make me wish that I never met you. This is worse."

He doesn't look at me when I plead for him to. I'm crying and reaching for his jaw to get him to turn to me. He shoves his seatbelt into the buckle and starts the engine, speeding up the street and onto the freeway. There's a wall between us, my tears have dried, but my mind is electrified. It's going a mile a minute and I think about everything and nothing all at once. Edward's knuckles are white, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I thought it would crumble under his fingers.

The sun was gone. Kicked off its happy throne by the moon's shadow. I didn't question it when, after an hour of driving, Edward pulled into one of the few national parks in Phoenix. We were high up the mountain already and pine trees dotted the lot gaining in number the further we walked into the forest. It's dark and I wondered how many times Edward had been here to be so familiar with the windy path. He was silent the entire time, and I understood that he was nursing his thoughts. I didn't feel upset at him. I felt remorseful. I felt it linger in my gut like a bad casserole, heavy and painful to digest. Bad conversations, however, had their way of swimming up to the surface again, pushing your thoughts into a corner and belting its words out, over and over.

When we got to a clearing, Edward pulled the blanket out of his backpack and set it down where it looked like a hill began. When he sat down and his legs disappeared, I realized that we were on a cliff. Nervously, I sat down beside him, feeling the tension roll off of him in waves. He pulled me into his side without a word. I was thankful that he gave me so many layers to wear because the wind was much, much cooler here. But it wasn't the cold that made me feel icy inside, it was the thought of leaving Edward and telling him I never wanted to see him again.

With my head tucked in its cocoon under his neck, Edward sighed, kissed my forehead and spoke in whispers. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"Don't be, I deserve it."

"It's making me crazy Isabella. I hate cancer. I fucking hate it." I smiled slightly at his use of foul language then frowned because it meant that he really _fucking_ hated it.

"Edward? This won't change anything, will it?"

"I'm following your lead from now on."

"Oh, okay." I was punching myself mentally. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!

"I still meant what I said."

"I know. I do too."

"Why don't you want me?" He whispered hoarsely.

"I never said that, Edward."

I pulled away from him and looked him straight in the eyes, hoping he can see the message conveyed in them that I couldn't speak. He nodded.

"Why?" He whispered. "I need to understand this for me to let it go."

"The universe hears all and ends all, Edward. I'm just its latest victim."

"If we acknowledge it, it won't be taken away. I assure you, Isabella."

"Yes it will."

He took my fragile hands into his large ones, quietly readjusting the gloves to fit snugly again. "Is that the only reason?"

"I'll let you know the other one later," I quietly.

As if he read my mind, he placed my hands back in my lap and watched my face steadily. "You're not going to leave me, are you?"

I turned away from him, tormented by the fact that he caught the bullshit flying through the air and fed it back to my ears. I thought about it seriously. I didn't want him to see me shrivel up while they pump me full of useless hope.

"It's going to be you walking away, Isabella. You have to tell me you're leaving, that you don't want to be with me. Make it clear."

I nodded, feeling my thoughts strangle my heart.

"I'll just drop you home, then."

I nodded again and waited for him to lift me from my spot. When we were standing, I felt numbness surround me like novocaine.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"I wanted to show you where I lived."

I looked up in confusion. "You live in a forest?"

"No," he smiled tightly. "I live over there." He pointed in the direction of the cliff and it was then that I realized there was a large break in the trees across from us. I could clearly see a modern-looking house, secluded from other neighbours by an expanse of trees, with a pool glowing blue in the darkness.

"I'll bring you home now. I, uh…yeah."

He turned on his heel, packed up the blanket and hiked his bag over his shoulder.

"I don't want to go just yet, Edward."

He sighed and spoke with his back to me. "You're not being fair, Isabella."

"I know I'm not. I need to sleep on everything okay? I don't know what to do." I whispered my voice into the wind, hoping he'd catch the desperation that fueled every word. "Nothing I say feels right to me, but it's about doing what's best. Practical."

"Let me make you dinner then, m'kay?"

"Okay."

We drove up the driveway in silence. Edward rolled the windows up when we pulled up to the gate and punched a button on his visor. I couldn't digest what I was seeing before me. I couldn't register Edward's touch on my cheek when he told me we were here. How are you supposed to feel when you know you've got less than a year to live? How do you act? How do you handle it?

I knew that, without a doubt, I was handling it badly. Horribly. Edward was taking the brunt of my frustrations, speaking to me kinder than I deserved. He held my door open, pulling me out by the wrists, and led me with his hand on the small of my back to the front door. He dug through his pockets for his keys and unlocked it, allowing me to go inside before him. With blind fingers, he punched in the disarm code into the glowing green keypad and flicked on the light.

Edward had taste. There was a colour scheme and everything matched the cozy man-of-distinction feel of the room. If I felt like myself, I'd find a way to insult him easily. Browns, greens, silvers and greys swirled around me as I spun to face him. Edward faced the door, his shoulders bunched up by his ears because he hung his head down. His hands were lost in his hair.

"Isabella, do you mind just sitting down in the living room? I-I need a moment."

Even though he couldn't see me, I nodded and slipped off my running shoes. I kept my eyes focused on the couch, not wanting to see any personal artifacts he had and shuffled to it. I heard Edward walk up the stairs. I didn't want to look around to see anything but the white socks on my feet.

I doubled over, feeling the warmth of my forearm become sweaty on my forehead. In four short days, my life went from being horrendously boring to an explosion of drama. I was feeling overwhelmed with it all. I wanted Edward in my life, but he shouldn't be. I needed Edward for reasons I wasn't prepared to think about yet, but I couldn't kill him in the process. I was a leech. I'd give him sadness in return for morsels of happiness.

"Omlette?"

I looked up, seeing Edward in sweatpants and a simple white t-shirt made my breath catch in my throat. His hands were tugging at his hair again, and I wanted so badly to take those hands and wrap them around me. I nodded my yes and followed Edward to the kitchen and sat on a barstool.

"You have a nice place."

"I'm comfortable."

"How will you manage living in a dorm?"

"I'm not a snob, Isabella," he said, slamming the fridge shut.

"Sorry, I didn't mean that."

He sighed with his back facing me for the second time that night. "Isabella, this is going to be really hard for me to say so I'm just going to say it."

He placed the carton of eggs on the counter beside the pile of veggies and lingered there for a moment before coming to sit beside me. With both hands in his hair and his elbows on the counter, he breathed deeply and exhaled in the same fashion.

"If you leave, if you tell me you never want to see me again, you must mean it with every fiber of your being. You will never hear of me or see me or find me. If I stay here, which I won't, I will be tempted to be with you. And if it's separation you want, I will have to respect your decision. It's the only way I physically can."

"You'd move away? Even from college?"  
He nodded.

"I can be wherever my feet can take me and be okay. It's what I've been doing."

I shook my head, staring at the same spot in the granite for nearly a minute.

"I want to be here Isabella. If you make me leave to protect me from the pain, you're really not. It pains me that you'd even think that's best. You've made me the happiest I've been in a long, long time and if you leave, you'll be taking that away from me."

"Are you happy, Edward?"

"At the moment no. I can't bear the thought of cutting this short, Isabella. It makes me question what you feel for me."

I took his hands away from his hair, seeing the surprise in his eyes when he faces me. "The only reason why I'm doing this is because I don't want to tear your life apart. What if you and I…grow? Then what? I can't do that to you."

Edward chuckled darkly, taking his hands away from mine. He stood up and left the room, leaving me stunned. I got up to follow him, and climbed the stairs, surprised that he made it up to the fourth floor within a few seconds' head start.

Hearing me push the door open, Edward turned around. His eyes were puffy again, and that's the only piece of evidence I have of his crying. Edward was flawless, beautiful even at his worst. I noticed the state of disorder that his room was in. Clothes spilled out of his walk-in closet and littered the floor around us. Drawers half opened, books half read, spine-sprawled and dog-eared.

I crouched down beside him, took the broken picture frame from his hands and found my place in his lap. He burrowed his head under my neck, curling into me like a wilted flower. "My life is already torn apart, Isabella. Four days ago, I had no real purpose. No real ambition. I applied to college because it seemed like the only proper way to spend my time. I don't have family, I don't have friends. You came into my life four days ago, and I don't want to look back. I need you and I can't tell you how scared I am of losing you. I'm here, and I'm willing. I want to be with you and I hope that you'll let me."

My breath stuttered as I tried to regain my stance on the argument. "Edward, I don't want to be with you," I said, knowing fully well it was the biggest lie I've ever uttered in my life.

Edward stood up slowly, enough to let my bottom gently plop down on the carpeted floor. He spun on his heel and violently pulled the door all the way open so that it crashed into the wall behind it. The doorknob was eaten by the drywall.

I chased Edward down the stairs, frantically watching his hand follow the handrail down to the first floor. When I got there, he was shoving his feet into muddy runners. He registered that I was behind him and turned, only to speak over his shoulder.

In a voice that was level and cool, void of the warmth of his sweet honey tenor, he spoke. "You're welcome to stay the night. I can't drive you home knowing that it will be the last I ever see you again. There's a guest room on the second floor. I'll call your mother to come and get you in the morning, but if you want to go home tonight, you call her yourself."

Before he opened the door and disappeared into the night, Edward turned all the way and looked at me tiredly. "I want you to stay out of my way and out of my things. If you need anything, I'll be in the guest house out back. Or text me. Then lose my number."

I had a chance to call him back to me, to tell him to wait, turn around, kiss him, anything. Instead, I stood there. Dumbly silenced by how deeply his words cut me even though he gave me what I wanted.

I shut the lights off as I went upstairs. I crawled into the too comfy bed and settled against the multiple pillows that probably cost thirty bucks a piece. The room was drenched in blackness, no light filtered through the window because there was none to begin with. I couldn't give my thoughts another second of my time because all I saw and heard was Edward and his voice.

Sometime during that, I forgot that I was going to die. I remembered that I was alive and feeling fine except for the fear that was gnawing at my nerves. I pulled out my phone, wondering if Edward was awake and let the bright light of the screen blind me. I scrolled through my contacts, aiming to delete Edward's number but memorized it instead, hearing his voice in my mind when he saved it to my phone.

I stopped when I saw my dad's number, automatically pressing the _call _button. I was going to hang up, but I remembered that it was him that I needed the most at that moment. It was my father that could console me like no other and give me the advice I needed that only a seasoned veteran could provide.

"Bella, why in the name of the good Lord are you calling me at his hour?" He laughed because in all honesty, he couldn't care less.

A sob bubbled out of my throat before I could get a sentence out. "…Daddy."

"Honey? What's wrong? What happened?" I could almost see him sitting up in bed, so I did the same, leaning forward until my face touched the mattress and I was folded in half.

"It-it-I-I-have _it, _I-I-I-have _it_."

"Oh baby girl…" His voice was cut off by a sniffle. "You'll be okay, okay? Just fine, you'll see. They'll take care of you. We all will."

"No, dad. I won't."

He was silent. Infinitesimally small was his voice as he asked me what it was and how long. I answered, and his strangled breath and steady voice said tons about how strong he was forcing himself to be.

"How are you handling it?"

"Badly."

"Your mom and Phil?"

"I don't know. I'm not home, I'm with a friend."

"Who is she? Do I know her? Is she helping you cope?"

_Cope. _That was a word we'd thrown around like spaghetti. How are you coping? How is he coping? How will I cope when he's gone?"

"He, dad."

"Well, what in tarnation is he doing there with you?"

"I care for him a lot dad. More than I should."

"What about him? Does he…"

"Yeah dad."

"What is he to you?"

"Dad, I'm going to be honest and tell you that I want to be with him. I want to, but it's not right. I can't do this to him. I can't kill him too."

"Listen to me. Isabella Swan, you have no idea how much I understand what you're going through. Did you think I wanted you to see me waste away? No," he said, not waiting for my answer. I was going to get an earful from him – exactly what I wanted. He went on, and on and I listened to every word, silencing my tears with his fatherly advice. Charlie scolded me for ever thinking that pushing people away would make things better. _This is the time to let people in. Do the things you won't be able to do today, but be careful about it. I'm not saying to go out on a bender. I'm saying enjoy life. Go shopping, buy shoes, kiss that boy square on the mouth because it's all you can do. The only thing you can do about this is live, Isabella. Live life and enjoy it while you can. If you don't you'll just lie around and wait for death with regret hanging over you every day. He won't come until he's there. _

When Charlie was near exhaustion I said my goodnight.

He was right.

Edward was right.

But it didn't _feel _right to take advantage of the circumstances like that. Despite knowing that I should follow my gut, I still couldn't find the strength to believe in it entirely. I was so against the images burning a hole in my mind. I didn't want Edward to cry in my empty room after they wheel the cart out. _My time hasn't come yet, _I reminded myself. _Die now or die later? _If I decided to live out the rest of my life holed up in my own vacuum of despair I should just put in my request for assisted suicide because it was legal since I was already a ticking bomb.

If I forced Edward away, he'd resent me. I wasn't sure if I could handle that either. There were many things I couldn't handle and more things that I was handling badly. Pushing the people who cared about me was insane, according to Charlie. I needed them and it was true. I needed Edward. I needed Charlie and Phil and Renee to be there.

With tears brimming over, I fumbled my way out of bed and into the hallway, gripping the railing as tight as my fingers could handle. I stuck my feet into my shoes, not caring that they weren't even on properly. I didn't know where the guest house was, but it made sense for it to be in the backyard so I followed the interlock path through a gate. I passed the pool, the pool house and saw a gravel path begin at the edge of the forest.

Steeling my nerves and breaking into a run because the darkness terrified me, I followed it for a minute, then another, and then a few more until I saw the path round a curve and realized that the curve fed into a tiny front yard and ended at an even smaller porch.

The lights were off and I couldn't for the life of me swallow down the sobbing gasps I kept spewing out. The trees looked hauntingly sinister as they stood unmoving around me, like spectators of a surgery gone horribly, horribly wrong. The door was smooth, the handle gripped in my hand turned with a lot of effort and soon I had the door open then shut behind me with a loud bang.

The house was darker than it was outside. I couldn't see my hands in front of me until I heard a metallic click and light bloomed from an oil lamp on a milk crate. Edward was sitting up on a dingy looking double bed shoved into the far right corner. The guest house had one room and was almost disgustingly unkempt. I didn't care. I rushed to Edward's side, took in his baffled expression and crawled onto the bed and in between his legs.

Edward took me in his arms without hesitation and wrapped me up in his jacket. He turned off the lamp, snuggled in close to my ear and planted kisses on every inch of my face but my lips.

I felt relief. I felt uncertainty. I felt warm.

If I was going to enjoy life, I decided I'd start with Edward.

"You came back," he said in a small voice.

"I'm sorry Edward. I'm so, so sorry."

"S'okay." He pulled me in so my nose was under the hollow of his neck. His trembles shook our bodies, so I kissed his skin, loving the coolness on my too-hot lips.

"I'm here, Edward. I'm here. I'm staying. I'm yours," I said, finally.

"Don't leave me yet. Not yet."

"Not yet," I agreed.

Sighing into him, I melted. Letting all the tension in my body roll to the floor to be buried by the dirt and pressure. Edward tightened his hold on me, his lips stretching into a smile on my forehead.

"Let's go inside?"

I hummed my consent against his skin.

I fell asleep in his arms as he walked back home, taking me with him to his bed and tucking me in under his chin, against his chest, and wrapped in his arms.


End file.
